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Great  masters. 


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GREAT     MASTERS 

B  Y 

JOHN     LAFARGE 


GARDEN     CITY  NEW      YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,      PAGE     AND      COMPANY 

1915 


■  Copyright,  1903,  by 
DOUBLEDAY.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


/fi-'^ai 


PORTRAIT  OF  MICHELANGELO  BY  BONASONE 


TO  A.   F.  JACCACI,  ESQ.,  WITHOUT  WHOSE  HELP  AND  ADVICE 
THESE  ESSAYS  WOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  WRITTEN 


PREFACE 


These  essays  were  written  a  year  ago  for  the  pages  of 
McClure's.  In  the  magazine  they  were  of  necessity  very 
much  cut  down,  for  most  practical  reasons  of  space  and  for  the 
insertion  of  engravings.  But  as  their  ideal  was  that  of  con- 
densed notices,  they  may  not  have  suffered  much  in  their 
earlier  abridged  form.  What  form  they  have  is  the  result  of 
a  desire  to  write  for  a  large  public,  which  public  needs  the 
ordinary  biographical  statements  regarding  illustrious  lives, 
and  also  of  a  wish  so  to  write  that  those  who  had  given  time 
and  thought  to  the  works  of  these  artists,  should  feel  that  they 
were  expressly  addressed — in  short,  that  an  artist  might  be 
interested  in  these  expositions  of  the  lives  and  doings  of  cer- 
tain other  artists,  and  find  therein  some  freshness  of  view, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  any  reader  might  have  his  memories 
established  by  the  story,  and  his  interest  increased  in  the 
works  of  art  described  or  referred  to.  For  these  purposes,  I 
have  followed  the  simplest  of  all  plans,  the  record  of  the  work- 
ing life  of  each  artist,  which  explains  his  genius,  and  which 
keeps  us  within  the  salutary  consideration  of  the  outside  limits 
that  define  it.  We  are,  perhaps,  too  apt  to  look  upon  the 


vi  GREAT     MASTERS 

great  artist  of  the  past  as  a  free  agent,  early  possessed  of  all 
the  power  and  development  acquired  by  long  work  against 
outside  pressure,  and  to  think  of  him  as  imposing  the  form  of 
his  ideas  upon  an  easy  world.  Hence,  sometimes  we  think 
of  Albrecht  Diirer  as  bringing  Teutonic  art  into  Italy,  while, 
of  course,  he  is  nothing  more  than  a  German  student  going 
to  the  land  of  greater  art.  We  throw  back  into  the  early 
position  of  the  great  man  the  image  of  his  full  development ; 
we  make  him  out  as  conscious  from  the  beginning  of  all  his 
capacities.  Instead  of  recognising  m  him  the  same  laws  that 
belong  to  other  developments,  we  insist  on  his  being  all  of  one 
piece — as  if,  like  Minerva,  he  had  sprung  all  armed  from  the 
brain  of  Jupiter.  In  short,  we  forget  that  these  men  had  to 
die  long  ago  to  obtain  the  authority  which  they  hold  to-day. 
It  is  possible  that  none  of  them  achieved  their  best  work,  or 
carried  out  their  intentions  in  full.  Rubens  and  Raphael  may 
have  had  some  such  chance,  but  we  know  that  we  see  in 
Michelangelo  and  Rembrandt  the  expression  of  a  struggle 
against  outside  necessities.  To  give  a  full  account  of  the 
life  of  any  great  artist  the  history  of  each  piece  of  work  should 
be  taken  up  as  we  take  up  the  story  of  a  general's  campaign. 

I  have  not  expressly  stated  these  points  in  the  brief  essays, 
but  I  have  had  them  always  in  mind,  because  of  a  desire  to 
keep  within  the  most  certain  and  truthful  attitude — such  a 


PREFACE  vii 

one  as  their  subjects  themselves  would  recognise  in  their 
memories.  Hence,  also,  I  have  dropped  all  anecdotes  but  the 
most  authentic  ones,  such  as  are  certified  by  the  men  them- 
selves. Nor  have  I  tried  to  weigh  their  characters ;  what  they 
were  should  properly  come  out  for  us  in  their  story.  Nor  have 
I  attempted  to  criticise  the  point  of  view  of  any  strictly  estab- 
hshed  standards  of  art,  because  the  definitions  of  art  are  estab- 
lished by  what  these  men  have  done.  Their  works  make  the 
geogi-aphy,  if  I  may  so  say,  of  what  we  call  art.  If  there  are 
other  countries  to  be  found  in  it,  then  they  have  been  discov- 
ered by  special  men,  acting  upon  their  instincts,  and  forced  into 
new  channels  by  the  ordinary  circumstances  of  life.  This  does 
not  belittle  the  heroes  of  whom  I  have  written.  It  helps,  in 
reality,  to  place  them  higher  than  by  a  mere  abstract  lauda- 
tory account.  It  saves  them  also  from  the  exaggerated  view 
that  makes  them  merely  results  of  time  and  place,  or  victims 
of  temperament.  We  can  feel  all  the  more  distinctly  the 
energies  they  employed ;  and  all  the  more  we  can  reahse  that 
their  superiority  is  eminently  a  moral  one.  In  that  way,  we  see 
them  praised  by  the  whole  tenor  of  their  life,  and  they  become, 
in  the  most  simple  way,  heroes  of  example  and  honours  to 
mankind. 

I  have  chosen  only  these  few,  who  are  indubitably  of  the 
greatest.  I  have  added  at  the  end  a  notice  of  one  whose  works 


viii  GREAT    MASTERS 

are  not  separately  of  equal  importance  with  those  of  his  fel- 
lows of  the  Western  world,  Hokusai.  I  am  fully  aware  of  the 
classical  Japanese  views  regarding  the  artist  of  the  "  vulgar 
school."  They  are,  in  the  main,  right.  There  is  no  possible  com- 
parison between  the  elegant  but  somewhat  superficial  beauties 
of  the  Japanese  artists  whom  we  know  best,  because  we  have 
them  in  printed  form,  and  the  deep  sentiment,  the  serenity,  or 
spiritual  uplifting  of  the  Buddhist  art  of  Japan — or  again  the 
synthetic  view  of  all  nature  which  belongs  to  the  artists  of  an 
earlier  date.  But  the  enormous  amount  of  Hokusai's  produc- 
tions, his  unflagging  power,  the  spirit  of  his  vision  of  life,  and 
his  being,  like  the  others  I  write  about,  an  untiring  workman, 
make  him  touch  at  least  the  limits  of  the  greatest  art.  And 
then  he  has  been  given  the  special  mark  which  lifts  the 
designer  out  of  the  lower  categories — the  gift  of  a  fresh  per- 
ception of  any  subject,  the  sight  of  the  result  before  it  is  un- 
dertaken— so  that  not  to  have  seen  his  manner  of  seeing  would 
be  to  miss  an  absolutely  different  part  of  the  whole  field  of 
representation. 

The  same  necessities  which  limited  the  length  of  my  writing 
have  also  limited  the  number  of  prints  which  accompany  these 
essays.  The  works  of  the  men  of  whom  I  write  are  so  impor- 
tant that  it  is  very  difficult  to  abridge  them  without  diminish- 
ing the  explanation  of  what  they  did. 


CONTENTS 


PASS 

MICHELANGELO     1 

RAPHAEL 69 

REMBRANDT 95 

RUBENS 127 

VELASQUEZ 157 

DURER 189, 

HOKUSAI 217 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


PORTRAIT   OF    MICHELANGELO,    BY    BONASONE        Frontispiece 

MICHELANGELO  Facing 

page 

CUPID 4 

PIETA 8 

UNFINISHED    GROUP    OF    THE    PIETA 13 

DAVID 16 

MADONNA    AND  CHILD 20 

THECREATIONOFMAN 29 

THEDELPHICSIBYL 33 

THETHINKER 36 

TWILIGHT           .         .         .         .         : 45 

THE    LAST    JUDGMENT 48 

MOSES 57 

THE    CAPTIVE 65 

RAPHAEL 

PORTRAIT    OF    HIMSELF 69 

THE    MADONNA    OF    THE    TEMPI    FAMILY      ....  70 

MARRIAGEOFTHEVIRGIN 75 

THE    MADONNA    OF    THE    CHAIR          ......  76 


xii  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 
page 
THE    "LARGE"    HOLY    FAMILY 79 

PORTRAIT    OF    POPE    JULIUS   II 82 

THE    MASS    OF    BOLSENA 84 

THE    WOMAN    WITH   THE    VEIL 86 

THEVISIONOFEZEKIEL 89 

DETAIL    FROM    THE    SISTINE    MADONNA      ....  91 

PORTRAIT    OF    BALDASSARE    CASTIGLIONE     ...  93 


REMBRANDT 

PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 

PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST'S    BROTHER     . 
PORTRAIT    OF    SASKIA    (PENCIL    DRAWING) 
PORTRAIT    OF    AN    OLD    WOMAN 
CHRIST    HEALING    THE    SICK       .... 

DR.    FAUSTUS  

THE    SUPPER    AT    EMMAUS     

DETAIL    FROM    THE    LESSON    IN    ANATOMY 
THE    SYNDICS    OF    THE    CLOTH    GUILD 
JOSEPH    INTERPRETING    HIS    DREAMS 
JOB    VISITED    BY  HIS    FRIENDS 


95 

98 
102 
107 
111 
113 
114 
116 
118 
123 
125 


RUBENS 


PORTRAIT  OF  THE  ARTIST 
THE  ARTIST'S  TWO  SONS  . 
PORTRAIT    OF  AN    OLD    WOMAN 


127 
130 
134 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

Facing 
page 

DIANA'S    RETURN    FROM    THE    CHASE 139 

THE    DESCENT    FROM    THE    CROSS 143 

PORTRAIT     OF     THE     ARTIST    AND     HIS     FIRST    WIFE, 

ISABELLA    BRANT 144 

PORTRAIT    OF    HELENA    FOURMENT 146 

THE    WALK    IN    THE    GARDEN 148 

THE    GARDEN   OF    LOVE 150 

ST.    GEORGE    AND    THE    DRAGON 155 

VELASQUEZ 

PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 157 

PHILIP    IV 161 

THE    SPINNERS 162 

MCENIPPUS 166 

iESOP    (DETAIL) 171 

DON    BALTASAR    CARLOS    ON    HORSEBACK  .         .        .175 

DON    BALTASAR    CARLOS    AND    A    DWARF    ....  176 

POPE    INNOCENT    X.  (DETAIL) 178 

THE    ACTOR    (PABLILLOS    DE    VALLADOLID)     .         .        .  180 

THE    SURRENDER    OF    BREDA 183 

ADMIRAL    DON   ADRIAN    PULIDO    PA REJA        .        .        .  186 

DiJRER 

PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 189 

PORTRAIT  OF    WILLIBALD    PIRKHEIMER.         .        .        .193 

STUDY    OF    AN    OLD    MAN'S    HEAD 194 


xiv  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facinff 
page 
THE    KNIGHT,    DEATH    AND    THE    DEVIL       ....       196 

MELENCHOLIA 198 

ST.    JEROME    IN    HIS    CELL 203 

ADORATION    OF    THE    TRINITY    BY    ALL    SAINTS     .         .  205 

PORTRAIT    OF    PHILIP    MELANCTHON 207 

PORTRAIT    OF    ERASMUS 208 

ST.    JOHN    AND    ST.    PETER 211 

ST.    MARK    AND    ST.    PAUL       .         . 212 

HOKUSAI 
PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST '  .        .217 


MICHELANGELO 


\. 


"The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  Dome 
And  groined  the  vaults  of  Christian  Rome 
Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity  ; 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free." 

EMERSON. 


MICHELANGELO 


The  story  of  this  the  greatest  of  known  artists  has  a  back- 
ground of  history  so  extraordinary  and  tumultuous  that  it 
alone  would  give  importance  to  any  biography.  In  this  special 
case,  the  history  of  the  artist  is  singularly  entangled  with  the 
history  of  the  time. 

The  essential  drama  of  human  life  remains  the  same,  but 
the  peaceful  occupation  of  the  artist  is  subject  to  a  violence  of 
outside  pressure  against  which  the  man  struggles  with  excep- 
tional effort.  A  full  history  of  Michelangelo  would  imply  the 
study  of  the  passage  from  the  Middle  Ages  of  faith  and  of 
society  to  the  beginning  of  the  modern  world.  His  life  closes 
the  end  of  the  Old  World  and  begins  the  New.  That  form  of 
civilization  which  he  saw  beginning  has  also  made  its  mark 
and  taken  its  turn  in  the  record  of  historical  evolution. 

The  invention  of  the  art  of  printing  had  just  been  made  and 
was  beginning  to  establish  new  forms  of  education,  to  make 
the  learning  of  the  past  accessible  and  to  allow  free  deliverance 
of  that  which  was  to  hasten  every  form  of  change  in  religious 
and  social  life. 


4  GREAT     MASTERS 

The  boy  saw  the  first  enthusiasm  for  the  unfolding  of  class- 
ical antiquity  which  moulded  the  culture  of  the  Renaissance. 
In  his  early  youth  came  the  discovery  of  America — the  open- 
ing of  the  other  half  of  the  world — the  beginning  of  that  enor- 
mous Spanish  Empire  upon  which  the  sun  never  set,  and  the 
consequent  changes  in  the  knowledge  and  commerce  of  the 
world.  Slowly,  in  his  youth  and  middle  age,  came  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  political  system  of  Europe,  involving  in  his  own 
land  greater  and  more  acute  convulsions.  The  old  man  lived 
to  see  a  changed  world,  disturbed  not  only  by  social  evolution, 
but  by  great  religious  dissensions,  which  later  changed  the 
very  definitions  of  Christian  thought.  Around  him  in  Italy 
flourished  a  development  of  the  "  human  plant,"  in  which  the 
individual  more  distinctly  than  ever  before  asserted  the  powers 
which  make  the  adventurer.  It  was  the  end  of  the  age  of  ty- 
rants, crystallising  into  an  ordered  system  of  rule.  It  was  an 
age  of  extraordinary  crime  and  passion,  and  also  of  virtue, 
whose  records  are  among  the  most  singular  in  history.  Noth- 
ing in  the  State  but  was  shaken,  and  the  Church  itself  was 
tossed  in  such  a  sea  as  might  make  man  believe  that  Christ 
slept  in  Peter's  boat. 

Against  this  background  of  an  agitated  world  of  hope  and 
struggle  and  despair  is  detached  the  important  personality  of 
an  artist  whose  extreme  sensitiveness  and  interest  in  all  ques- 


CUPID 

SOUTH    KENSINGTON    MUSEUM 


MICHELANGELO  5 

tions  must  have  made  the  tissue  of  his  thoughts  even  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  forms  of  painting,  sculpture,  verse,  and  archi- 
tecture. He  was  born  in  a  centre  of  political,  literary,  religious, 
and  artistic  evolution.  Florence,  to  which  he  belonged,  was  a 
centre  of  thought,  of  culture,  and  of  trade,  and  was  passing 
from  the  ancient  idea  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  City  to 
forms  of  more  modern  tyranny  and  larger  government  more 
centralised.  We  shall  see  how,  even  in  his  earliest  youth,  he 
felt  these  influences. 

This  is  the  record  of  his  birth.  His  father,  Leonardo  Buonar- 
roti Simoni,  wrote  as  follows  in  his  private  note- book:  "I 
record  that  on  this  day,  March  6,  1474,  a  male  child  was  born 
to  me.  I  gave  him  the  name  of  Michelangelo,  and  he  was 
born  on  a  Monday  morning,  four  or  five  hours  before  daybreak; 
and  he  was  born  while  I  was  Podesta  of  Caprese ;  and  he  was 
born  at  Caprese ;  and  the  godfathers  were  those  I  have  named 
below,"  etc.  "  Note  that  the  date  is  1474,  according  to  Floren- 
tine usage;  according  to  Roman  usage  it  is  1475."  We  are 
also  told  by  Condivi,  the  kindly  pupil  of  Michelangelo,  "  that 
the  planets  were  propitious  at  this  birth  and  showed  how  great 
was  to  be  this  little  child,  and  of  how  great  genius,  because  as 
Mercury  and  Venus  entered  with  benign  aspect  into  the  House 
of  Jove  this  promised — as  in  fact  did  follow — that  such  a  birth 
was  to  be  that  of  a  noble  and  high  capacity,  fit  to  succeed  uni- 


6  GREAT     MASTERS 

versally  in  any  undertaking,  but  particularly  in  those  arts  which 
please  the  senses,  like  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture." 

When  Michelangelo  was  born  his  father  then  was  Podest^, 
or  governor,  of  this  little  place  of  Caprese.  He  was  born  in  an 
ancient  family  of  distinguished  descent,  going  back  in  ancestry 
to  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  family  held 
very  strongly  to  this  special  distinction  of  origin,  which  in  the 
Florence  of  that  date  marked  a  special  class,  though  many 
such,  as  with  us,  might  be  devoted  to  trade  or  to  occupations 
which  in  other  parts  of  Europe  were  separated  from  the  possi- 
ble chances  of  noble  birth.  Indeed,  the  Buonarroti  family 
claimed  origin  from  the  Counts  of  Canossa,  illustrious  not  only 
by  their  antiquity,  but  also  by  their  connection  with  imperial 
blood.  Beatrice,  the  sister  of  Henry  II**,  the  Emperor,  mar- 
ried that  Boniface  of  Canossa  to  whom  was  born  the  famous 
Countess  Matilda,  who  held  in  Italy,  among  other  places,  what 
was  once  called  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter. 

Objections  have  been  made  to  this  high  descent,  but  in  1520 
Alexander,  Count  of  Canossa,  wrote  to  Michelangelo  claim- 
ing this  connection,  and  calling  himself  "  your  good  relative." 
Michelangelo  also  attached  great  importance  to  this  descent, 
and  I  mention  it  with  care,  because  it  connects  with  a  part  of 
his  character — a  certain  personal  pride  and  sense  of  obligation 
that  marks  him.  This  sense  of  high  descent  stood  by  him  in 


MICHELANGELO  7 

his  relations  with  the  great,  and  separated  him  from  the  mass 
of  artists  and  artisans,  accustomed  to  greater  subservience  than 
he  allowed  himself. 

At  the  termination  of  his  term  of  office,  the  father  returned 
to  Florence  and  the  lad  was  given  to  nurse  to  a  woman  of 
Settignano,  where  the  family  had  a  villa  which  still  stands. 
Michelangelo's  foster  -  mother  was  the  daughter  and  wife  of 
stone-cutters,  and  Michelangelo  reasonably  attributed  his 
predilection  for  sculpture  to  this  first  childish  impression.  He 
went  to  school  in  Florence,  and  is  said  to  have  learned  no  more 
than  reading,  writing,  and  Italian,  because  he  complained  later 
that  he  knew  no  Latin;  but  that  may  have  been  from  his 
modesty  or  from  his  pride ;  we  shall  see  him  later  writing  in 
Latin,  and  not  ill.  His  acquaintance  with  boys,  apprentices  to 
masters  in  painting  and  sculpture  in  this  city  of  Art,  developed 
in  the  boy  a  strong  desire  for  some  such  life.  He  met  the  usual 
opposition  from  his  family,  who  took  it  hard,  and  even  beat 
him  on  that  account,  as  was  but  natural  and  reasonable.  They 
yielded,  however,  and  we  have  the  record  which  binds  him  as 
an  apprentice  in  the  painter  Ghirlandajo's  workshop  on  the  first 
of  April,  1488,  for  three  ensuing  years.  We  have  stories  about 
ehis  Ufe  there  which  must  have  left  a  great  impression  upon  him 
from  what  later  we  shall  see  of  his  work  as  a  painter,  however 
much  he  has  protested  that  he  was  but  a  sculptor.  He  became 


8  GREAT     MASTERS 

one  in  this  way:  Lorenzo  of  Medici,  the  Magnificent,  had 
adorned  his  garden  with  antique  statues  and  had  placed  a  pupil 
and  follower  of  Donatello,  the  great  sculptor,  over  these  col- 
lections, virtually  to  instruct  any  young  men  who  might  wish 
to  use  them.  Ghirlandajo  was  asked  to  select  from  his  pupils  the 
most  promising.  From  among  them  Michelangelo  was  chosen 
and  learned  the  practice  of  stone-cutting  as  a  workman,  acquir- 
ing as  a  boy  that  practical  skill  which  he  developed  further  and 
further  through  a  long  life  so  that  the  mark  of  his  personal  toil 
is  famous.  It  gives  to  the  actual  marble  an  importance  of  ex- 
pression that  no  cast,  no  copy  can  render.  The  sight  of  the 
actual  work,  even  to  one  who  knows  it  well  by  the  photograph, 
engraving,  or  the  cast,  is  a  special  sensation  like  that  of  the 
quality  of  a  voice  in  music,  untranslatable  by  another. 

An  anecdote  is  told  that  serves  as  a  beginning  of  his  relations 
with  the  Medici  which  were  to  influence  all  his  life.  He  had 
used  a  piece  of  refuse  marble  to  carve  a  grinning  mask,  upon 
which  he  was  at  work  when  Lorenzo  passed  by.  The  Mag- 
nificent was  astonished  at  the  quality  of  the  work  with  re- 
gard to  the  age  of  the  boy,  so  that  joking  with  him  as 
with  a  child  he  said :  "  Oh  !  thou  hast  made  that  faun  an 
old  one,  and  yet  thou  has  left  him  all  his  teeth.  Dost  thou 
not  know  that  with  old  people  of  such  an  age  there  is  al- 
ways wanting  some?"  So  that  as  soon  as   the   Magnificent 


PIETA 

ST.  Peter's,  rome 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRAUN,  CLEMENT  &  CO. 


MICHELANGELO  9 

had  left,  Michelangelo  struck  out  a  tooth  from  the  upper 
jaw,  showing  as  if  it  had  dropped  from  the  gum,  and  waited 
anxiously  for  the  Magnificent  on  the  following  day.  The  lat- 
ter having  come  and  seeing  the  keenness  and  simplicity  of 
the  boy  left  much  to  himself,  then  made  up  his  mind  to  fa- 
vour such  a  talent  and  to  take  him  into  his  service,  and  learn- 
ing whose  son  he  was  said:  "  Go  tell  thy  father  that  I  should 
like  to  have  a  talk  with  him." 

With  great  disgust  at  Michelangelo's  artistic  friends  and  with 
great  objection  to  his  son's  becoming  a  stone-cutter,  the  father 
dared  not  refuse  the  services  of  his  son  to  the  great  ruler  of  Flor- 
ence, but  replied  that  not  only  Michelangelo,  but  all  the  family 
were  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Magnificent.  Lorenzo  insisted  upon 
doing  him  some  favour  in  exchange.  The  father  modestly  asked 
for  a  place  in  the  Customs,  saying  in  the  old  democratic  way  of 
Florence:  "  Lorenzo,  I  am  fit  for  nothing  but  reading  and  writ- 
ing, I  have  never  practised  art  nor  trade,  I  have  lived  on  prop- 
erty that  has  come  from  my  ancestors,  and  it  has  been  my  care 
to  preserve  these  estates  and  to  increase  them  as  I  have  been 
able  to  do  by  my  industry."  The  JMagnificent  laid  his  hand 
upon  his  shoulder,  saying  with  a  smile :  "  Thou  wilt  always  be 
poor.  If  thou  desirest  a  place  I  can  arrange  it  for  thee  until  a 
better  become  vacant."  It  is  worth  making  out  this  little  detail 
as  a  record  of  the  personal  relations  that  were  still  the  mark  of 


10  GREAT     MASTERS 

earlier  Florence,  so  that  Michelangelo  for  three  years,  from 
his  fifteenth  to  his  eighteenth,  lived  under  the  roof  and  in  the 
company  of  the  greatest  man  in  that  part  of  the  world,  a  man 
whose  name  remains  representative  of  culture  and  patronage 
of  art,  associated  with  the  other  great  name  of  Pericles  in 
Athens. 

The  boy's  position  was  that  of  a  guest.  He  had  a  room  in  the 
palace  and  was  treated  as  one  of  the  sons  of  the  house.  With 
these  sons  he  continued  an  acquaintance  through  the  greater 
part  of  his  life.  One  was  to  be  the  famous  Pope  Leo  X.,  another 
Pope  Clement  VII.;  for  the  great  families  of  Italy  struggled  to 
put  a  hand  upon  the  rudder  of  the  boat  of  Peter.  In  this  house- 
hold were  men  of  the  noblest  birth  and  highest  rank,  assembled 
around  the  daily  board.  It  was  the  custom  for  guests  to  take 
their  places  next  the  master  in  the  order  of  their  arrival.  Those 
who  were  present  at  the  beginning  of  the  meal  sat,  each  accord- 
ing to  his  degree,  next  to  the  Magnificent,  not  moving  after- 
ward for  any  one  who  might  appear;  and  so  it  happened  that 
Michelangelo  found  himself  frequently  seated  above  Lor- 
enzo's children  and  other  persons  of  great  consequence  with 
whom  that  house  was  constantly  filled.  All  these  great  men 
paid  him  attention  and  encouraged  him  in  the  art  which  he  had 
chosen.  Chief  of  all  was  the  Magnificent  himself,  "  who  often  sent 
for  him  during  the  day  in  order  to  show  him  jewels,  cornehans, 


MICHELANGELO  11 

medals,  and  such-like  badges  of  great  variety."  The  business  of 
Michael's  hfe  in  the  Medicean  house  was  to  make  himself  a  great 
sculptor,  and  thus  confer  glory  upon  the  illustrious  City  of  Flor- 
ence over  which  the  Medicean  house  presided.* 

These  beautiful  years  of  study  and  encouragement  were  the 
few  years  of  peace  in  Michelangelo's  long  life.  We  can  imag- 
ine these  pleasant  relations  with  the  scholars  of  the  new  learn- 
ing, the  poets,  and  distinguished  humanists  who  made  of  Flor- 
ence an  Itahan  Athens.  With  them  he  must  have  joined  in  the 
admiration  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  whose  store-houses 
were  being  opened  for  the  world  with  a  belief  that  their  treas- 
ures would  fill  completely  that  cup  of  knowledge  which  seems 
to  empty  for  each  new  generation.  Nor  was  all  this  thirst  for 
studies  merely.  Lorenzo,  as  we  know,  occupied  the  Floren- 
tines with  shows  and  festivals,  triumphs  and  choruses  for  mas- 
queraders,  with  masques  and  wonderful  dances  to  which  the 
artists  of  that  day  devoted  their  ingenuity.  With  others,  the  boy 
must  have  joined  with  the  meetings  of  the  young  folk  out  of 
doors  at  the  Baptistery  or  the  Duomo  where  they  read,  they 
sung  or  listened  to  the  lyrics  of  Politian  sung  by  girls  on  summer 
evenings  in  the  public  squares  or  as  they  danced  in  the  Piazza 
di  Santa  Trinita.     Michelangelo  must  have  entered  somewhat 

*  Most  of  what  Michelangelo  produced  during  that  period  belonged  to  himself ;  and 
^ome  of  his  work  still  remains  in  the  ancient  house  of  the  Buonarroti. 


12  GREAT     MASTERS 

in  the  amusements  of  youth,  but  he  seems  always  to  have  had 
some  sense  of  withdrawal  within  himself,  and  of  consequent  in- 
difference to  the  doings  of  others  which  brought  him  occasion- 
ally into  momentary  conflict.  Thus,  he  came  to  have  the  quar- 
rel with  Torrigiano  from  which  ensued  the  broken  nose  that 
his  portraits  showed  through  life.  The  outrage  was  regarded  by 
the  youth  of  Florence  with  aversion,  as  if  a  sacrilege,  and  Cel- 
lini writes  about  it  with  anger  and  would  have  wiped  out  the 
insult  with  blood ;  but  personal  violence  was  not  of  Michel- 
angelo, w^ho  was  rarely  aroused  except  when  injustice  was 
done  to  himself  or  others,  says  Condivi,  his  pupil  and  biographer. 
Perhaps  he  was  beginning  to  feel  the  strenuous  check  that 
one-sided  thought  places  on  the  enjoyment  of  life,  on  the  ad- 
miration of  the  beautiful,  and  the  serenity  that  we  desire  for 
our  peace  of  mind.  The  great  opponent  of  the  Medici,  the 
searcher  of  men's  hearts,  the  denouncer  of  pleasant  vices — Sa- 
vonarola— was  preaching  in  Florence  between  1491  and  1498. 
Michelangelo's  elder  brother  became  a  convert  to  the  great 
preachers  teaching  and  entered  religion.  Michelangelo  was 
one  of  the  listeners  and  was  necessarily  moved  by  the  stormy 
sweep  of  that  religious  revival  that  accompanied  the  first  years 
of  the  great  preacher's  influence  in  Florence.  During  all  his  life 
he  remembered  even  the  very  sound  of  the  great  Dominican's 
voice. 


U  N  F  I  N  I  S  H  K  I)    G  1{  ( )  L  1'    ()  F     i  II  K     I'  I  K  I'  A 


MICHELANGELO  13 

This  picture  of  opposing  views  struggling  fiercely  for  mastery 
is  worth  dwelling  on,  for  it  is  the  story  of  Michelangelo's  en- 
tire life.  On  one  side  a  culture  more  than  pagan,  love  of  life  all 
through,  contempt  for  abnegation  of  all  kinds ;  on  the  other 
side  a  burning  flame  of  spiritual  austerity,  condemning  all, 
however  beautiful,  that  might  turn  the  soul  away  from  the 
path  of  eternal  life. 

The  pressure  could  not  be  escaped.  The  whole  political 
force  of  the  reformer  was  thrown  against  the  interests  of  the 
student's  patrons,  and,  however  grateful  Michelangelo  may 
have  been  for  help  and  patronage,  the  ancient  republican 
spirit  remained  with  him,  and  at  a  later  day  turned  all  his 
energies  to  the  maintenance  of  the  liberties  of  Florence, 
against  the  IMedicean  house.  For  that  house  he  seems  to  have 
had  a  personal  sentiment,  but  the  children  were  not  what  the 
older  ones  had  tried  to  be. 

Michelangelo  must  have  seen  intimately  all  the  lower 
and  meaner  traits  that  marked  the  successors  of  the  great 
house.  Hence  in  part  the  deep  disdain  for  all  forms  of  mean- 
ness which  distinguished  him  through  his  later  life  and  is 
expressed  more  and  more  in  the  paintings  and  sculptures 
through  which  he  tells  his  feelings  to  us. 

In  1492,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  died,  leaving  a  great  gap 
in  the  fortunes  of  Florence.  "  In  the  state  great  was  the  dread 


14  GREAT     MASTERS 

for  the  future  of  those  who  had  submitted  to  him  ;  his  most 
devoted  friends  fled  or  disappeared."  Meanwhile,  his  son 
Piero  ruled  for  a  time.  Michelangelo  had  returned  to  his 
father's  house,  where  he  pursued  those  researches,  beginning 
in  anatomy,  which  are  the  special  bases  of  the  art  he  devel- 
oped. Such  studies  were  only  just  beginning,  and  Michelan- 
gelo is  one  of  those  whose  labours  made  the  knowledge  that 
we  carry  so  easily  to-day.  He  carved  and  painted  also.  What- 
ever we  can  ascribe  to  this  early  time  is  marked  by  the  haugh- 
tiness which  is  the  stamp  of  his  work  as  of  his  nature.  The 
new  Medici,  in  his  brutal  way,  still  favoured  the  youth  and 
again  he  sat,  unwilling,  at  the  princely  table. 

All  through  his  life  we  shall  find  Michelangelo  sensitive 
to  premonitions  of  danger;  over-sensitive  in  appearance, 
apparently  capricious  but  always  justified  by  the  events ;  so 
much  so  that  his  friends  believed  that  the  special  protection 
of  God  had  followed  him. 

When  Piero  was  about  to  be  driven  out  of  Florence, 
Michael  departed  suddenly  with  a  couple  of  young  friends, 
artists  also.  His  singular  premonition  is  enough  reason  without 
recourse  to  the  story  of  the  dream  so  charmingly  told  by  Con- 
divi  of  his  friend  Cardiere  having  seen  the  dead  Lorenzo  in 
mourning  habit ;  predicting  some  great  misfortune. 

The  three    fled   to   Bologna    with   little   money;   and   by 


MICHELANGELO  15 

curious  chance — a  trouble  with  the  customs  on  arriving — 
Michael  was  at  once  taken  as  a  friend  by  John  Francis  Aldo- 
vrandi,  one  of  the  "  Sixteen,"  who  invited  him  to  his  house. 
Michael  gave  all  his  money  to  his  friends  and  began  a  resi- 
dence with  the  nobleman  which  lasted  more  than  a  year. 
With  his  patron,  who  honoured  and  loved  the  intellect  of  the 
boy,  he  read  Dante  or  Petrarch  and  sometimes  Boccaccio. 
Through  him,  too,  he  found  work  on  the  shrine  of  St.  Domi- 
nic, where  he  finished  some  work  of  an  older  sculptor,  and 
made  the  charming  statue  of  a  kneeling  angel,  holding  a  can- 
dle-stick, which  is  still  there  and  which  shows  the  contained 
strength  of  the  future  artist.  It  still  connects  with  the  old 
traditions  natural  to  the  boy  brought  up  under  a  follower  of 
the  great  Donatello.  Indeed,  this  continuation  of  both  the 
feeling,  the  manner,  and  the  very  details  of  older  work  con- 
tinue with  Michelangelo,  either  a  sculptor  or  painter,  long 
after  the  Sistine  Chapel  had  put  him  into  habits  in  which  we 
detect  no  longer  the  great  filiation. 

Some  supposed  danger  brought  the  youth  back  again  to 
Florence,  which  was  safe  again.  And  then  the  small  chance  of 
having  made  a  fraudulent  antique  turned  him  to  Rome.  The 
Cardinal  of  St.  Giorgio  who  had  bought  it,  discovering  its 
maker  from  the  man  who  sold  it,  invited  him  to  Rome. 
Nothing   came,  apparently,  from  this   invitation,  which   was 


16  GREAT     MASTERS 

meant  rather  to  discover  the  author  of  the  supposed  antique  ; 
but  for  a  Roman  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Gallo,  he  made 
the  Bacchus  which  is  now  in  Florence;  and  probably  the 
Cupid  which  is  now  in  London.  In  both  of  them  appears  his 
fondness  for  a  momentary  movement ;  the  passing  of  one 
action  into  another.  But  the  Bacchus  is  as  realistic,  as  much  a 
study  of  the  beautiful  young  drunkard,  as  the  other  is  the 
representation  of  a  divine  power.  The  two  sides  of  INIichel- 
angelo,  as  shown  by  this  work  of  the  same  period,  seem  to 
have  been  developed  within  the  short  period  of  the  two  years 
between  1496  and  1498. 

Young  Michael  was  now  twenty-three  years  old,  and  in  the 
next  year  was  to  imagine  and  execute  with  marvellous  skill 
one  of  the  most  important  statues  of  the  world,  unrivalled  in 
the  union  of  profound  feeling  and  eesthetic  bloom  of  beauty. 
His  friend  Gallo  obtained  for  him  the  order  for  what  is  called 
"  the  Pieta,"  the  Virgin  with  the  dead  Christ  on  her  lap,  which 
was  to  be  made  for  the  French  Cardinal  of  St.  Denis.  This  was 
promised  within  a  year,  and  carried  out  as  promised,  and  guar- 
anteed also  by  Gallo  to  be  the  finest  marble  "which  Rome  to- 
day can  show,  and  that  no  master  of  our  day  shall  be  able  to 
produce  a  better."  The  business  engagement  of  Gallo  was  car- 
ried out  even  in  that  particular  of  a  work  superior  to  all  others. 
The  statue  has  still  for  us  the  solemn  charm  which  surprised 


DAVID 

FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BR A UN,     CLEMENT     & 


X 


MICHELANGELO  17 

the  Romans  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  extraor- 
dinary knowledge  acquired  by  the  youth  is  felt  in  the  beauti- 
ful body  of  the  Christ,  not  copied,  but  studied  from  nature. 
The  helplessness  of  death  is  represented  without  its  harshness ; 
the  tenderness  of  feeling  which  the  face  and  gesture  of  the 
Mother  express,  seems  carried  into  the  very  body  of  the  Son ; 
and  the  sculptor's  idea  of  strength  which  has  made  him  give  to 
the  Madonna  a  form  capable  of  lifting  and  carrying  the  grown 
man,  recalls  or  suggests  the  fact  that  he  is  still  a  child  to  her. 
We  know  that  Michael  purposely  gave  to  the  Virgin  greater 
youth  than  could  be  true  or  was  habitual  in  art. 

It  was  an  expression  of  human  feeling  that  he  justified  by 
the  exceptional  purity  of  mind  of  the  mother,  which,  according 
to  his  habit  of  thought,  now  slowly  forming,  was  told  by  the 
body.  The  reasons  given  by  artists  for  what  they  do  are  but 
fragments  of  many  thoughts ;  the  sure  feeling  conveyed  is  still 
that  of  the  mother  and  child. 

With  his  entrance,  then,  to  his  twenty-fifth  year,  Michel- 
angelo had,  to  the  knowledge  of  all  artists,  become  an  impor- 
tant master.  Still,  sculpture  was  not  what  affected  the  public 
mind  at  that  date,  and  it  is  unUkely  that  his  own  people  really 
understood  that  m  this  work  was  the  promise  of  the  culmination 
of  Italian  art.  Another  Madonna,  that  of  Bruges,  must  have 
been  made  about  these  days ;  it  may  have  helped  to  fill  the 


18  GREAT     MASTERS 

young  workman's  time  until  he  was  recalled  by  his  father  in 
1501  to  Florence.  He  was  still  a  minor,  subject  to  his  father's 
rule.  He  returned  to  his  home,  apparently  because  he  was 
needed  and  his  help  was  more  accessible  than  at  a  distance.  He 
had  already  begun  the  support  of  his  family,  which  was  in 
reality  the  main  occupation  that  he  followed,  treating  himself 
harshly  that  he  might  give  more  to  them,  and  meeting  with  the 
usual  experiences  of  miscomprehension  by  his  relatives,  who 
could  not  understand  why  he  did  not  make  more  money  since 
he  was  paid  so  much.  They  asked  and  begged  for  money  which 
he  obtained  for  them,  excusing  himself  for  having  written  irri- 
table letters  because  of  distress  of  mind.  At  the  same  time, 
they  reproached  him  with  too  great  economy,  or  rather  penuri- 
ousness,  and  asked  him  to  avoid  physical  hardships  for  fear  he 
should  become  ill.  It  must  have  been  entirely  from  a  desire  to  I 
save  money  for  his  family  that  Michelangelo  acquired  almost 
sordid  habits.  He  gave  freely,  but  lived  abstemiously,  or  rather 
according  to  the  result  of  the  work  he  hoped  to  get  out  of  him- 
self His  habits  of  parsimony  may  have  arisen  from  that  side  of 
his  nature  which  seems  to  have  been  averse  to  the  sensual, 
however  sensitive  to  beauty.  It  was  not  the  enjoyment  of 
things  by  himself  that  resulted  from  his  admirations. 

Among  other  work  done  on  his  return  to  Florence  is  that  of 
the  colossal  David.  This  was  made  out  of  a  great  block  of  mar- 


MICHELANGELO  19 

ble  owned  by  the  Board  of  Works,  of  Santa  Maria  del  Fiore, 
which  for  a  century  had  remained  useless,  owing  to  its  having 
been  badly  blocked  out  by  the  sculptor  of  that  date ;  so  that  its 
shape  was  an  unpromising  one  from  which  to  get  out  a  human 
figure. 

Michelangelo  made  out  of  it  what  we  know  as  the  David, 
getting  it  out  so  exactly  without  any  piecing  that  on  the  top 
of  the  head  and  on  the  base  some  vestige  of  the  rough  surface 
still  remains,  left  purposely  as  a  sculptor's  mark.  On  this  he 
laboured  two  years,  finishing  it  on  the  25th  of  January,  1504. 

Many  famous  citizens  were  called  together  to  decide,  in 
Florentine  fashion,  where  it  should  be  placed,  which  was  left 
at  length  to  Michelangelo  himself,  who  decided  for  the  right 
side  of  the  entrance  of  the  old  Palace.  Among  the  names  of 
the  voters  were :  San  Gallo  the  architect,  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
Sandro  Botticelli,  Filippino  Lippi,  David  Ghirlandajo,  and  the 
father  of  Benvenuto  Cellini. 

The  idea  of  the  David  was  a  popular  symbol  of  Florence  as 
champion  of  a  small,  free  community  against  the  tyranny  of 
greater  powers.  It  is  an  ideal  of  courage  and  youthful  confi- 
dence in  a  righteous  cause,  embodied  in  a  figure  carefully  ad- 
justed to  the  naturalistic  view. 

The  extraordinary  power  of  assimilating  study  and  skill  as  a 
workman  have  made  it  possible  for  the  young  sculptor  to  carry 


20  GREAT     MASTERS 

out  together  the  conflicting  impression  of  a  young  man,  not 
fully  grown,  with  head  and  hands  too  large,  yet  of  a  heroic  form, 
and  an  energy  flred  by  a  great  duty.  The  action,  as  was  loved 
by  Michelangelo,  is  momentary.  The  hand  holds  the  piece 
of  wood  on  which  the  sling  is  hung,  easily,  not  grasping,  but 
gently  feeling  for  the  proper  hold.  The  sling  runs  round  the 
back  and  its  centre,  filled  with  stone,  is  held  with  the  left  hand 
poised  on  the  left  shoulder,  ready  to  be  loosed.  This  movement, 
then,  allows  the  expression  of  the  face  to  be  an  important  part 
of  the  whole  story.  The  statue  is  too  well  known  to  say  more ; 
it  is  one  of  the  great  statues ;  the  knowledge  implied  and  the 
execution  are  both  extraordinary,  and  yet  one  feels,  somehow, 
that  the  youth  of  the  artist  is  embodied  in  the  youth  of  the 
statue. 

The  statue  has  remained  to  us  since  that  time,  though  in- 
jured once  in  some  riot.  Even  with  all  the  good- will  that 
saluted  it,  mingled  that  undercurrent  of  ill-will  and  ill-luck 
which  marks  one  of  the  most  successful  careers  of  any  man  as 
far  as  may  go  a  fame,  acquired  in  boyhood  and  increasing 
steadily  to  extreme  old  age.  Jealous  hands  attempted  to  de- 
face the  David  in  the  night  before  its  being  placed,  as  other 
jealous  hands  were  said  to  have  destroyed  the  next  great  work 
of  his  which  was  to  insure  his  pre-eminence  as  a  draughtsman 
over  all  the  other  artists  of  the  world.  He  was  now  twenty- 


MADONNA  AND  CHILD 

NATIONAL  MUSEUM,  FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BBOGI 


MICHELANGELO  21 

nine  years  old.  When  he  was  asked  to  prepare  the  cartoon  for 
a  painting  to  adorn  the  hall  of  the  great  Council  in  the  old 
Palace,  to  represent  a  scene  of  Florentine  history,  he  chose  a 
moment  of  the  war  with  Pisa,  1364,  when  a  band  of  Floren- 
tines was  surprised,  bathing,  by  the  English  band  of  mercenaries 
commanded  by  Sir  John  Ilawkwood.  Another  painting  was  to 
be  executed  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  his  only  possible  rival  at 
the  time.  Da  Vinci  made  both  cartoon  and  painting,  and  both 
have  absolutely  disappeared.  A  study  by  Rubens  gives  us  a 
fragment  of  extraordinary  fire,  known  as  the  Battle  for  the 
Standard,  all  that  remains  of  the  Leonardo.  Of  Michelangelo's 
cartoon  which  was  never  carried  into  painting,  all  that  remains 
with  certainty  is  a  famous  engraving  of  a  few  figures  by  Marc 
Antonio.  How  and  when  this  gigantic  drawing  disappeared  is 
not  known  exactly.  Evil  tongues  charged  an  old  enemy  of 
Michelangelo's ;  but  there  are  many  fates  which  preside  over 
the  destruction  of  things.  For  a  long  time  the  drawing  hung  in 
the  great  hall  it  was  to  adorn,  and  the  artists  of  the  time  came 
to  study  from  it.  Their  names  are  too  numerous  to  mention ; 
they  include  all  who  could  possibly  get  to  see  it ;  and  with  the 
study  of  this  new  dispensation,  Raphael  begins  the  great  lines 
of  his  full  development  which  were  again  to  be  increased  and 
broadened  by  further  study  of  Michelangelo  in  the  Sistinc 
Chapel.  The  great  cartoon  makes  a  sort  of  division  in  the  hi.:- 


22  GREAT     MASTERS 

tory  of  painting.  For  the  first  time,  an  apparently  complete 
representation  of  the  form  and  movement  of  the  human  body 
was  presented  with  that  knowledge  of  anatomy  that  was  to  be- 
come common  property. 

Upon  that,  the  young  man  rested  for  a  time,  absorbed  within 
himself  In  a  desultory  manner,  not  approved  by  others,  he 
studied,  we  are  told,  Italian  verse  in  its  ordinary  forms,  thus 
giving  way  to  those  extraordinary  alternations  of  dreamy  rest 
and  solitude  which  mark  the  intervals  of  his  great  works  ;  dur- 
ing which  he  retired  into  himself  like  a  Creator :  in  so  far  a 
type  of  the  meditative  artist  who  really  prepares  himself  most 
during  the  periods  of  inactivity.  From  this  he  was  awakened 
by  a  call  from  the  new  Pope,  Julius  the  Second  ;  a  call  which 
was  to  attach  him  for  ever  to  the  Papacy  and  the  fame  of 
Rome. 

Julius  was  a  man  of  large  and  simple  ambitions,  of  impetu- 
ous and  uncompromising  spirit.  He  desired  a  free  Italy  and  a 
great  Papacy,  wishing  all  great  about  him,  and,  among  other 
things,  great  art.  Julius  summoned  Michelangelo,  now  famous, 
but  not  to  the  entire  world,  to  come  and  serve  him  in  Rome. 
He  was  not  alone:  San  Gallo,  Bramante,  and  Raphael  were 
among  the  number  whom  the  Pope  gathered  together  to  express 
through  art  his  views  for  the  glory  and  power  of  the  Papacy. 
For  some  little  while  Michelangelo  remained  idle,  then  the 


MICHELANGELO  23 

Pope  asked  him  to  make  designs  for  his  own  tomb,  which  was 
to  be  of  extreme  importance,  of  which  we  liave  no  accurate 
account  or  design,  which  nev^er  was  carried  out,  of  which  we 
hav^e  some  extraordinary  fragments,  not  used,  and  which  was 
to  be  the  curse  of  a  great  artist's  Ufe ;  in  reference  to  which  he 
looked  at  all  other  work  and  which  brought  on  him  enmities 
and  business  troubles,  and  loss  of  time  and  health.  At  once  he 
was  rushed  off  into  the  mountains  to  quarry  marble  and  to 
prepare  what  was  needed  for  tiiis  monument,  great  enough  for 
him  and  for  the  great  Pope. 

A  large  part  of  the  year  was  spent  in  this  work  ;  the 
sculptor  returned  to  find  the  Pope  pressing  him,  but  so  friendly 
as  to  have  a  special  drawbridge  built  from  the  Palace  to  the 
artist's  lodgings. 

The  great  Pope  and  lie  were  men  with  a  certain  similarity  of 
temper  and  loftiness  of  purpose,  and  notwithstanding  the  quar- 
rels which  ensued  between  them,  the  sculptor  seems  to  have  re- 
tained a  certain  sentiment  for  this  other  powerful  and  violent 
man.  They  were  each  what  the  Italians  call  "  terrible."  That  is 
to  say ;  free  to  speak  their  minds  on  any  and  all  occasions. 

On  one  of  these  occasions,  which  repeatedly  came  to  him, 
as  to  most  artists — the  claiming  of  delayed  payment  from  the 
great  patron  —  Michelangelo  was  refused  entrance  a  second 
or  third  time,  notwithstanding  the  protests  of  some  Bishop 


24  GREAT     MASTERS 

present.  Upon  which  Michelangelo  said :  "  Tell  the  Pope  if 
he  wishes  to  see  me  he  can  find  me  elsewhere."  Then  returning 
home  he  ordered  all  his  furniture  sold  and  his  servants  to  fol- 
low him  to  Florence;  and,  taking  horse,  got  that  night  into 
Florentine  territory,  where  he  stopped  in  a  safe  place.  Courier 
upon  courier  came  from  Julius  to  bring  him  back,  wherever  he 
might  be.  Violence  could  not  be  used  in  a  foreign  territory 
and  Michelangelo  threatened  force  in  self-defence.  He  gave, 
however,  an  answer  to  the  letter  of  the  Pope,  in  which  he  de- 
clined to  return,  even  under  the  threat  of  displeasure  ;  saying 
that  he  deserved  no  such  treatment  after  faithful  service  ;  and 
that  he  considered  himself  free  nor  wished  to  be  tied  up  again. 

Therefore  he  went  to  Florence,  where  again  the  Pope  ad- 
dressed the  City,  asking  his  return  and  threatening  reprisal. 
The  artist  refused,  and  proposed  even  to  leave  Italy  and  go  to 
serve  the  Turk  at  Constantinople,  as  he  had  been  asked.  The 
City,  however,  prevailed  upon  him  to  go,  with  the  title  of  Am- 
bassador. And  he  met  the  Pope  at  Bologna,  a  city  which  Julius 
had  just  taken  by  sheer  courage  and  masterfulness.  Some 
words  passed  between  the  two  great  men ;  words  of  apology 
and  forgiving ;  and  a  few  days  later  Julius  asked  for  his  statue 
to  be  placed  in  the  city  to  establish  the  fact  of  his  lordship. 

The  gigantic  statue  held  up  its  right  hand  in  doubtful  atti- 
tude of  blessing  or  of  threat ;  and  in  the  other,  by  Julius's  or- 


MICHELANGELO  25 

der,  it  held  a  sword  instead  of  a  book.  "  What  book  ? "  he  had 
said.  "A  sword;  I  know  nothing  about  letters,  not  L"  This 
figure,  three  times  the  size  of  life,  was  made,  and  cast  with  dif- 
ficulty, twice ;  and  left  unpaid  for ;  as  with  much  of  the  work 
done  for  Julius,  who  meant  generously,  but  forgot,  absorbed  in 
the  great  strain  of  many  great  things.  The  statue  has  disap- 
peared. A  revolt  in  1511  was  the  occasion  of  its  destruction, 
and  we  are  somewhat  uncertain  even  of  how  it  looked.  Some- 
where or  other  the  head  is  hidden.  It  had  been  saved  and 
weighed  six  hundred  pounds. 

THE     SISTINE     CHAPEL,     1509 

A  brief  absence  to  Florence  and  Michelangelo  was  again 
called  back  to  Rome.  We  know  the  date,  because  his  father 
emancipated  the  son,  March  13, 1508,  which  gave  him  full  mas- 
tery over  his  property  and  his  person.  The  Pope  delayed  the 
work  on  the  tomb.  He  had  fixed  upon  a  wish  to  have  the 
Papal  Chapel  of  Pope  Sixtus,  now  known  as  the  Sistine, 
painted  as  to  its  vault.  The  walls  had  already  been  decorated 
by  various  masters  whose  works  remain.  The  friends  of  Michel- 
angelo and  Michelangelo  himself  through  all  his  Ufe  be- 
lieved that  he  had  been  asked  to  do  this  at  the  suggestion  of 
enemies  who  wished  to  embroil  him  with  the  Pope  and  to  pre- 
vent his  going  on  with  the  great  project  of  the  tomb,  upon 


26  GREAT     MASTERS 

which  he  had  set  his  heart ;  so  that  it  is  rehited  that  Bramante, 
the  architect,  a  man  of  great  talent,  but  not  an  honest  man,  a 
manager  and  an  intriguer,  the  head  of  a  band  of  artists  includ- 
ing Raphael  himself,  proposed  the  scheme  of  Michael's  painting 
the  vault  with  the  hope  that  either  he  would  refuse  and  dis- 
please the  Pope,  or  accepting,  fail  ;  and  in  either  case  Raphael 
might  obtain  the  order.  Of  this,  as  I  say,  Michael  remained 
convinced  during  his  long  life.  He  did  not  wish  to  take  the 
difficult  work  upon  his  shoulders ;  he  had  scarcely  painted,  and 
he  must  have  felt  that  weight  which  oppresses  the  artist  of 
whom  still  more  is  expected  than  he  has  given  before.  Still  it 
was  a  habit  of  the  day  to  ask  almost  anything  of  men  of  great 
capacity,  and  in  that  way  the  project  was  not  as  strange  as  it 
might  appear. 

Protesting  at  every  opportunity  that  painting  was  not  his 
trade,  with  a  "God  help  me"  Michelangelo  undertook  the 
painting  of  the  great  vault,  the  work  by  which,  after  all,  he  is 
best  known  and  best  measured,  if  it  be  possible  to  use  the 
word  "  measured "  for  one  of  the  principal  artists  of  history. 
For  there  are  no  foreknown  limits  of  art ;  all  that  we  know  of 
the  laws  of  art  comes  from  the  works  of  certain  men  which 
establish  these  limits.  And  the  painter  Parrhasius  spoke  with 
Greek  distinction  when  he  said  that  he  had  defined  certain  lim- 
its by  what  he  had  done. 


MICHELANGELO  27 

Michelangelo  had  struggled  greatly  to  be  excused,  propos- 
ing other  artists  in  his  place,  but  the  Pope  acted  upon  him 
like  the  head  of  Medusa,  as  he  has  jestingly  remarked.  Around 
the  work  which  he  did  cluster  many  legends  and  stories,  all 
unessential  and  frequently  inaccurate ;  for  the  man  was  soli- 
tary, and  as  in  the  case  of  most  great  workers,  it  is  specially 
during  the  creation  of  the  most  important  works  of  art  that 
we  know  less  of  what  occupies  the  minds  of  their  makers.  The 
great  roof  had  to  be  prepared,  and  the  building  itself  was 
unsafe  and  had  later  to  be  made  more  stable.  Michael  had  the 
usual  difficulties  of  the  painter  in  establishing  these  facts,  which 
were  outside  of  his  control,  but  which  tended  to  an  endanger- 
ing of  his  work  during  its  progress  and  after  completion.  He 
was  abundantly  right,  as  we  know  to-day  by  the  many  cracks 
and  seams  and  spottings  that  disfigure  the  work;  and  he  ap- 
pears to  have  wished  to  draw  attention  to  this  possibility  for 
the  instruction  of  his  lord  and  patron,  for  he  has  painted  him- 
self here  and  there  artificial  cracks,  anticipating  the  possible 
changes  of  the  future. 

We  know  that  he  was  often  discouraged,  and  that  he  could 
not  obtain  the  help  of  experienced  hands  from  the  very  fact 
that  they  were  already  skilled,  and  hence  unwilling  or  unfit  to 
fall  into  the  new  technique,  which  he  invented  as  he  went 
along. 


28  GREAT    MASTERS 

So  the  tradition  has  grown  of  his  having  painted  these  ten 
thousand  square  feet  of  surface,  unaided.  But,  of  course,  it  is 
not  so.  The  mechanical  necessities  called  for  help,  and  he  must 
have  used  it.  It  is,  notwithstanding,  the  most  extraordinary 
piece  of  technical  work  ever  accomplished,  both  in  perfection 
of  handling  and  in  the  fabulous  rapidity  of  the  execution.  Some 
of  the  most  important  and  celebrated  of  the  giant  figures  which 
fill  this  space  have  been  painted  within  two  or  four  days,  and 
their  finish  is  as  admirable  as  their  conception.  But  it  is  the 
finish  of  the  great  master.  There  is  nothing  more  done  than 
what  tells  the  story. 

Allowing  for  all  interruptions,  he  was  occupied  from  1509 
to  1512,  from  the  inception  to  the  final  uncovering.  The  Pope 
followed  the  work  constantly,  and  in  his  eagerness  had  the 
ceiling  uncovered  before  the  work  was  completed — on  the  1st 
of  November,  1509.  The  effect  on  the  world  of  Rome  and  on 
the  whole  Italian  world  is  one  of  the  great  triumphs  of  art. 
Artists  recognised  that  a  new  style  had  been  introduced,  and 
that  the  limits  of  the  art  of  painting  had  extended  beyond  their 
dreams.  It  is  one  of  the  intellectual  honours  of  Italy  that  this 
was  recognised  on  that  very  day,  and  that  Michelangelo  was 
placed  almost  where  he  is  now.  The  greater  meanings,  the  ex- 
treme reach  of  the  artist,  were  not  fully  understood,  it  is  true, 
and  even  the  last  four  hundred  years  have  only  begun  to  show 


O    H    p 


MICHELANGELO  29 

us  by  what  a  distance  this  man  s  work  is  separated  from  that 
of  all  others.  He  himself  was  necessarily  dissatisfied  with  the 
result,  writing  to  his  father  that  the  blame  of  insuccess  was  not 
entirely  his  own,  but  belonged  to  the  times,  which  he  judged 
*'  unfavourable  for  art."  In  theory  he  was  placed,  as  his  friend 
and  pupil  Condivi  says,  "  beyond  the  reach  of  envy,"  but  in 
reality  that  very  moment  of  triumph  drew  upon  him  again  the 
machinations  of  the  envious.  In  the  usual  way  of  business,  the 
same  then  as  we  know  to-day,  his  success  was  used  to  ask  for 
work  by  others,  that  the  chapel  should  contain  specimens  of 
other  artists,  who  would  thus  benefit  by  the  superiority  of  his 
work  to  obtain  commissions  for  themselves.  Eramante  at  once 
asked  the  Pope  that  Raphael  might  have  a  share  in  the  paint- 
ing of  the  Chapel.  The  Raphael  of  that  day  was  not  the  one 
we  know.  He  had  not  yet  studied  and  adapted  the  forms  of 
Michelangelo  to  his  own  genius,  so  that  the  request  was  more 
preposterous  even  than  it  was  unjust.  For  Raphael  began  at 
once  to  modify  his  style  in  his  usual  way  by  the  example  of 
Michelangelo.  He  perhaps  of  all  men  could  best  discern  the 
extreme  importance  of  the  new  phase  of  art,  and  thanked 
heaven,  we  are  told,  that  he  was  born  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  great  painter.  Michelangelo's  indignation  at  the  plot 
broke  up  the  project.  He  laid  it  all  before  the  Pope,  and  ex- 
posed the  ill-doings  of  Bramante  in  Bramante's  own  work  as 


30  GREAT     MASTERS 

an  architect,  which,  hurried  by  incessant  orders,  was  often  un- 
sound and  dangerous.  The  struggle  between  them,  or  rather 
between  Michelangelo  and  the  knot  of  intriguers  that  filled 
Rome  in  that  day  of  great  enterprises,  and  consequent  jeal- 
ousies, lasted  for  many  subsequent  years,  stopped  JMichelan- 
gelo's  future  work,  and  embittered  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
He  outlived  all,  remaining  the  undisputed  head  of  art,  but 
we  owe  to  this  the  barrenness  for  many  years  of  one  of  the 
greatest  producers  known  to  the  world.  Julius  stood  by  Michel- 
angelo to  his  death,  and  the  chapel  went  on,  the  vault  being  com- 
pleted within  the  date  that  we  know — October,  1512.  The  artist 
speaks  of  his  having  endured  "great  hardships,  illness,  and 
overwhelming  labour."  He  was  badly  paid  and  distressed  by 
the  demands  of  his  family,  who  had  grown  to  depend  upon 
him.  Naturally  they  were  unfeeling,  or  rather  they  could  not 
understand.  The  disasters  of  his  country  preyed  upon  him,  as 
well  as  his  anxiety  for  the  fortunes  of  his  family,  endangered 
by  the  struggles  of  the  politics  of  Florence.  His  great  patron, 
the  Pope,  was  opposed  to  what  Michael  believed  to  be  the 
interests  of  Florence,  and  the  artist's  friendship  for  his  master 
must  have  struggled  continually  with  the  feelings  of  the  born 
and  bred  repubhcan.  And  it  is  also  to  the  credit  of  the  great 
Pope  that  these  underlying  differences  did  not  disturb  his  good- 
will toward  the  man  whom  he  employed  for  the  glory  of  the 


MICHELANGELO  31 

Papacy.  It  was  an  age,  moreover,  when  personal  valour  and 
value  was  admired  beyond  anything  else,  and  rarely  before  or 
after  has  the  individual  flourished  in  such  magnificence. 

The  great  vault  of  the  Sistine  is  too  well  known,  either  by 
sight,  or  by  engraving,  or  photograph,  or  even  by  description, 
for  me  to  describe  it  again,  or  even  to  analyse  its  importance. 
Its  importance  is  not  only  one  of  technical  beauties,  but  arises 
from  its  being  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  important  stretches, 
upon  which  an  artist  has  been  able  to  express  what  is  in  reality 
himself  To-day  we  do  not  understand  art  as  expression  of 
sentiment :  its  vieans — imitation — seem  to  us  its  end.  Hence 
the  Sistine  is  far  away  from  the  modern  artist. 

As  I  said  before,  these  years  of  the  artist's  work  are  visible 
to  us  almost  only  by  his  work.  We  have  remaining  his  ordi- 
nary letters  of  family  or  business  intercourse,  perhaps  some 
verses,  but  we  feel  that  all  that  has  happened  outside,  and  the 
evolution  of  the  master's  own  mind,  is  written  out  in  the  sub- 
jects and  in  the  figures  of  the  great  painting.  We  shall  never 
know  exactly,  and  the  form  of  art  that  he  employed  must 
always  be  mysterious  in  its  absolute  meaning,  so  that  it  pre- 
sents intentions  that  vary  according  to  the  mind  of  him  who 
looks  at  it.  The  whole  scheme  is  that  of  a  picture,  according 
to  the  Bible,  of  the  Creation  of  Man,  his  having  sinned,  his 
being  punished,  his  being  admonished,  his  obstinacy  in  evil ; 


32  GREAT     MASTERS 

and  also  of  the  hope  of  escaping  from  sin,  held  out  by  the 
Prophets;  of  a  better  day  in  which  sin  shall  dwindle,  promised 
by  the  Prophets  of  the  Law,  and  by  the  Sibyls  of  the  so-called 
Pagan  world,  who  represent  the  constant  aspiration  of  all  man- 
kind toward  good  and  the  hope  of  its  final  triumph.  This  vast 
story  is  told  in  the  form  of  a  decoration.  So  that  the  poetic 
designs,  the  dramatic  expositions,  the  tragic  figures  are  in 
reality  subsidiary  parts  of  architectonic  divisions  and  orna- 
mental setting.  This  is  not  visible  to  our  mind.  We  have 
grown  away,  or  fallen  away,  from  the  greater  ideas  of  subservi- 
ence to  unity ;  the  modern  mind,  meaning  thereby  the  average 
artistic  practitioner  of  to-day,  would  make  the  story-part 
of  his  work — what  we  call  the  picture — so  important  as  to 
destroy  the  sense  of  a  wall-embroidery.  The  greater  man,  ca- 
pable of  innumerable  stories  and  master  of  the  drama,  has, 
on  the  contrary,  made  all  the  pictures,  which  themselves  are 
among  the  celebrated  works  of  man,  subject  to  a  great  plan  of 
ornamentation.  It  is  the  richest  in  planning  ever  made.  The 
resources  of  the  arts  of  architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting 
have  been  called  upon  to  unite  in  one  great  patterning  of  the 
ceiling.  The  feeling  of  sculpture  is  as  complete  as  if  these 
many  figures  had  been  in  reality  carved,  but  it  is  only  a  feel- 
ing. There  is  only  the  slight  deception  necessary  to  bind  them 
to  the  simulated  architecture,  which,  itself  merely  decorative, 


I 


THE    DELPHIC    SIBYL 

THE    SISTINE    CHAPEL 
PHOTOGKAPH     BY     ALINARI 


MICHELANGELO  33 

is  still  the  web  of  the  entire  work.  As  this  sculpture  and  archi- 
tecture is  represented  by  painting,  that  painting  also  is  treated 
as  painting,  and  nowhere,  even  with  the  greatest  colourists,  has 
a  bolder  and  more  logical  use  of  the  divisions  of  light  which 
we  call  tlie  colours  been  applied  to  a  surface.  The  unity  is  so 
great,  the  balance  of  effects  so  harmonious,  that  it  is  only  by 
study  that  we  see  expressed  in  the  methods  of  this  painting 
the  ancient  rules,  handed  down  by  practice,  which  unite  with 
the  latest  teaching  of  modern  scientific  colouring. 

It  would  be  hopelessly  lengthy  to  describe  the  stories  and 
the  characters  which  cover  the  great  vault ;  moreover,  they  are 
among  the  best  known  of  fiimous  works,  and  any  photograph 
tells  more  than  the  forms  of  another  method  of  expression. 
But  besides  the  Prophets  and  Sibyls  and  ancestors  of  the 
Christ,  the  ornamentation  consists  largely  of  representations, 
more  or  less  nude,  of  the  human  form  treated  as  if  interchange- 
able with  any  conventional  shape,  as  if  one  shape  were  as  easy 
to  give  as  another ;  and  yet  they  are  apparently  full  of  some 
singular  meaning,  as  if  within  them  were  confined  the  personal 
story  of  the  artist  who  in  the  dramas  and  their  expounders 
could  not  be  so  entirely  himself  In  that  way,  they  are  sepa 
rated  from  any  previous  work.  Through  all  the  rest,  Michel- 
angelo's originality  is  based  on  the  previous  work  of  Italy 
back  to  the  obscurest  intentions  of  the  JMiddle  Ages.  The  half 


34  GREAT     MASTERS 

expressed  desires  of  earlier  sculptors  are  here  completed.  So 
intimate  is  the  connection  that  the  student,  as  he  goes  through 
the  many  details,  will  call  up  the  memories  of  earlier  frag- 
ments inspired  by  a  similar  intensity.  We  think  of  this  great 
work  as  the  flowering  of  the  Renaissance.  It  is  in  reality  the 
last  expression  of  the  impulse  and  feeling  of  Mediaeval  Europe, 
But  it  is  expressed  in  a  new  rhythm  of  form,  that  beats 
through  every  figure,  and  with  a  knowledge  of  structure  and  a 
representation  unknown  before.  The  extraordinary  love  of 
beauty  that  possessed  the  artist,  his  sensitiveness  to  the  won- 
ders of  the  human  form,  cover  the  deeper  feelings  which  he 
had  in  common  with  the  men  of  a  more  intense  past.  One 
would  like  to  associate  with  the  meanings  of  the  great  vault 
some  of  Michelangelo's  own  thoughts  as  expressed  in  words, 
but  on  all  that  there  is  silence.  We  do  not  even  know  whether 
those  of  his  poems  that  reflect  feelings,  which  we  might  con- 
nect with  it,  belong  to  this  period,  but  we  feel  the  fiery  tem- 
perament when,  much  later,  he  wrote  : 

"  Give  me  the  time  when  loose  the  reins  I  flung 

Upon  the  neck  of  galloping  desire. 
Give  me  the  angel  face  that  now  among 

The  angels — tempers  Heaven  with  its  fire. 
Give  the  quick  step  that  now  is  grown  so  old. 

The  ready  tears 


MICHELANGELO  35 

''Give  me  again  ye  fountains  and  ye  streams 

That  flood  of  life^  not  yours  that  swells  your  front 

Beyond  the  natural  fulness  of  your  wont. 
I  gave,  and  I  take  back  as  it  beseems. 
And  thou  dense  choking  atmosphere  on  high 

Disperse  thy  fog  of  sighs — for  it  is  mine. 

And  make  the  glory  of  the  sun  to  shine 
Again  on  my  dim  eyes.  O  Earth  and  Sky. 

"Give  me  again  the  footsteps  I  have  trod. 

Let  the  paths  grow  where  I  walked  them  bare. 
The  echoes  where  I  waked  them  with  my  prayer 
Be  deaf — and  let  those  eyes — those  eyes,  O  God, 
Give  me  the  light  I  lent  them.     .     .     ."* 

Michelangelo  had  thus  modestly  finished  the  great  vault  at 
the  end  of  1512,  and  Pope  Julius  died  in  February,  1513.  One 
of  the  Medici  succeeded  him  under  the  name,  famous  to  us, 
of  Leo  X.  An  era  of  peace  was  hoped  for  under  a  ruler  less 
strenuous  than  Julius,  fond  of  art  and  literature,  and  fonder 
still  of  his  own  ease.  Michael  might  have  looked  to  friendly 
encouragement  from  this  man  whom  he  had  known  at  his 
father's  table,  and  who  was  another  son  of  artistic  Florence. 
But  we  know  that  Leo  was  offended  by  the  characteristics  of 
Michelangelo,  and  surrounded  as  he  was  by  a  lower  class  of 
men,  could  not  have  found  a  place  for  the  representative  of  re- 

*  Translation  of  John  Jay  Chapman. 


36  GREAT     MASTERS 

publican  directness.  Full  play  was  now  given  to  the  sr/ia/ler 
minds,  either  jealous  of  the  great  master,  or  attempting  to  use 
him  for  their  own  devices. 

We  are  limited  by  whatever  our  definition  of  life  may  be, 
high  or  low.  The  man  of  honour  can  hardly  understand  the 
position  of  those  who  liedge  in  matters  of  integrity  and  Mich- 
ael suffered  by  his  lofty  ideal  of  Hfe.  He  could  not  under- 
stand his  enemies,  nor  how  they  tried  to  get  his  work  from 
him  on  the  very  basis  of  its  excellence.  He  himself  recom- 
mended them  in  his  place  many  times.  Nor  could  they  under- 
stand why  justice  was  his  ideal,  thirsted  for  in  a  world  of  com- 
promise. In  that  he  is  singular  and  alone  above  all  his  contem- 
poraries; they  could  not  breathe  the  air  in  which  he  lived.  Nor 
could  he  breathe  in  theirs.  The  court  was  what  courts  are,  but 
here  tainted  with  a  looseness  which  scandalised  the  world. 
The  great  families  of  Italy  who  had  struggled  to  obtain  the 
Papacy  for  national  or  family  use,  carried  into  it  their  past — 
again  Christ  slept  in  the  boat  of  Peter. 

Nor  was  Michael  a  possible  hanger-on ;  apart  from  his  self- 
respect  he  held  a  strenuous  ideal  of  life.  He  has  explained  him- 
self in  the  light  of  common  sense  :  "  Those,"  he  says,  "  whom 
their  profession  obliges  to  lead  a  recluse  life,  ought  in  common 
justice  at  least  to  be  tolerated.  What  claim  by  right  have  you 
on  them  ?  Why  should  you  force  them  to  take  part  in  those 


THE    THINKER 

TOMB    OF    LORENZO    DI    MEDICI 
PHOTOGRAPH      BY      BRAUX,     CLEMENT     &     CO 


]\1 1  C  H  E  L  A  N  G  E  L  O  37 

vain  pastimes,  which  love  for  a  quiet  life  induces  them  to  shun? 
Do  you  not  know  that  there  are  sciences  which  demand  the 
whole  of  a  man  ?  " 

He  meanwhile  contracted  anew  with  the  heirs  of  Julius  for 
another  arrangement  of  the  dead  Pope's  monument,  an  arrange- 
ment which  was  again  to  bring  more  trouble  and  difficulty  upon 
him  by  entangling  him  in  engagements  sure  to  conflict  with 
those  he  would  owe  to  the  new  Pope.  Julius  had  been  indebted 
indeed  to  him,  apparently  upon  every  piece  of  work  accom- 
plished, intending  perhaps  to  make  all  right  for  the  man  he  so 
thoroughly  appreciated.  Michelangelo  had  begun  upon  the 
new  project,  employing  numerous  work-people,  masters  from 
Florence,  and  ordering  supplies  of  marble.  What  remains  of 
the  unfinished  tomb  belongs  perhaps  to  this  period.  He  writes 
(1515) :  "  I  am  forced  to  put  great  strain  upon  myself  this  sum- 
mer in  order  to  complete  my  undertaking,  for  I  think  that  I 
shall  soon  be  obliged  to  enter  the  Pope's  service."  These  two 
years  of  work  were  destined  to  be  lost,  for  the  Pope  resolved 
to  build  a  new  facade  to  the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Flor- 
ence, erected  by  his  family  and  other  magnates,  where  lay  his 
father,  the  great  Lorenzo.  For  this  fa9ade  he  asked  designs, 
and  a  success,  full  of  ill-luck,  brought  the  choice  upon  Michel- 
angelo's design.  What  it  was  to  be  exactly  we  do  not  know, 
but  it  became  an  excuse  for  the  sending  of  Michelangelo  to  the 


38  GREAT     MASTERS 

mountains  of  Carrara  to  excavate  the  necessary  marbles,  and 
prepare  the  roads  by  which  they  should  be  carried  to  the  sea. 
In  this  tedious  undertaking  he  was  kept  for  a  long  time,  thereby 
wasting  energies  in  work  which  might  have  been  accomplished 
by  others,  and  becoming  entangled  in  difficulties  with  the  great 
Urbino  family  of  whom  Julius  had  been  one,  and  with  whom 
he  had  engaged  to  carry  out  the  tomb  of  their  illustrious  rela- 
tive. They  had  hoped,  and  he  had  hoped  to  protect  himself  by 
clauses  of  contract,  which  should  debar  him  from  other  work, 
but  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  Pope  interfered  and  placed  him 
for  years  in  the  position  of  antagonising  the  wishes  of  his  pres- 
ent master,  and  those  of  the  influential  family  that  claimed  his 
services  also.  There  were  also  political  difficulties  complicated 
by  opposing  business  interests  that  were  to  make  him  still 
more  obnoxious  to  important  people,  for  the  Florentines  wished 
the  use  of  certain  other  quarries  and  the  Duke  of  Carrara 
claimed  engagements  for  using  his.  The  outspokenness  of 
Michelangelo  was  perpetually  in  the  way  of  either  scheme 
being  carried  out  for  the  mere  benefit  of  the  owners  of  these 
quarries,  and  both  parties  made  him  feel  their  displeasure.  He 
had  to  be  in  the  mountains  and  then  in  Florence,  and  until  1520 
he  was  not  freed  from  his  charge  of  quarrying  and  of  road  mak- 
ing. Meanwhile  he  worked  as  he  could  on  statues,  which  per- 
haps may  have  been  meant  for  the  great  tomb,  and  calmed  his 


MICHELANGELO  39 

sense  of  injury  and  insult  during  these  four  years  of  compul- 
sory employment  by  occasional  arduous  work.  During  that 
time  he  was  asked  to  prepare  for  the  commission  of  the  sepul- 
chral monuments  of  some  of  the  later  Medici,  eventually  car- 
ried out  under  strange  circumstances.  All  this  kept  him  away 
from  Rome,  to  the  great  distress  of  his  friends,  who  wished  him 
there  and  tried  to  urge  him  back  into  various  competitions  de- 
clined by  him. 

On  the  1st  of  December  the  Pope  died  suddenly,  and  for  a 
moment  Adrian  of  Utrecht  reigned  in  his  stead — a  good  man, 
a  strict  one,  not  devoid  of  love  of  art,  but  not  of  Italian  art,  and 
with  the  wishes  of  a  reformer  in  morals  and  religion.  He  was 
thus  unpopular  with  the  artists  and  functionaries,  but  his  ad- 
vent gave  this  relief  to  Michael,  that  he  was  able  to  resume  work 
again  unchallenged  on  his  beloved  project,  the  tomb  of  Julius. 
That  only  for  a  short  time,  for  another  Medici  was  elected  Pope 
in  November,  1523,  taking  the  name  of  Clement  as  a  mark  of 
his  desire  to  forgive  and  make  peace  in  Church  and  State.  He 
was  a  man  of  duties,  but  also  with  the  traditional  love  of  cul- 
ture of  his  family  and  city,  and  friendly  to  that  Michael  whom 
he  had  known  at  home,  and  whom  he  treated  during  his  reign 
with  a  consideration  beyond  that  of  other  Popes.  The  goodwill 
of  the  Pope  did  not  extend,  however,  to  granting  the  artist's 
wishes  to  continue  solely  on  the  monument  of  Julius,  and  was 


40  GREAT     MASTERS 

in  some  ways  a  misunderstanding  of  the  great  artist.  Michelan- 
gelo not  being  married,  and  living  an  exemplary  life,  the  Pope 
wished  that  he  should  take  orders  so  that  he  might  belong  more 
fully  to  himself;  perhaps  also  with  some  feeling  that  obedience 
would  be  easier  in  the  new  relation,  which  had  its  definite 
duties  and  privileges.  This  offer  Michelangelo  declined,  as  he 
had  also  declined  one  of  the  most  curious  propositions  wliich 
that  time,  believing  in  personal  value,  has  left  on  record.  Thi.s 
was  to  become  the  governor  of  one  of  the  young  Medici,  des- 
tined to  be  the  terrible  warrior,  the  leader  of  Italians,  under  i\^ 
name  of  "John  of  the  Black  Bands."  This  is  a  mere  incident, 
but  one  of  tlie  most  singular  in  the  extraordinary  career  of 
Michelangelo.  It  testifies,  however,  to  the  accumulated  ap- 
preciation of  the  seriousness  of  tlie  man's  character  that  he 
should  be  thought  of  as  an  educator  in  a  family  whose  actions 
and  influence  in  Florence  he  had  opposed  as  far  as  his  position 
allowed. 

This  service  of  the  Medici  and  this  opposition  to  them  was 
again  to  occupy  him  in  the  most  striking  ways  during  the  next 
few  years.  Clement  had  before  this,  in  the  name  of  Leo,  ordered 
him  to  take  up  the  work  of  the  Laurentian  I^ibrary  and  Chapel, 
interfering  again  with  the  work  on  Julius's  tomb,  perhaps 
on  purpose.  Michelangelo  had  yielded,  though  he  secretly 
worked  at  the  statues  of  the  tomb.  In  that  usual  secrecy  whicl? 


MICHELANGELO  41 

attends  the  work  of  most  great  artists,  he  was  accused  by  the 
heirs  of  Juhus  in  Rome  of  spending  all  his  time  in  pleasure,  the 
usual  explanation  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  hard  worker  from 
pleasure.  He  was  also  charged  with  having  received  much 
money  from  Julius,  and  of  doing  nothing  about  it.  We  know 
the  contrary  to-day. 

There  was  one  grave  consideration  which  appealed  to  him  at 
the  time  when  "  verily  there  was  need  of  patience,"  and  that  was 
the  appeal  to  civic  pride,  thus  expressed  by  Salviati  to  him: 
"  Reflect  tliat  having  commenced  a  work  of  this  nature,  our 
City  of  Florence  is  under  great  obligations  to  thee,  and  will  be 
permanently  indebted  to  all  of  thine  house."  Not  only  was  the 
work  distasteful  to  Michael's  one  lifelong  wish  to  complete 
the  great  tomb  of  Julius,  but  he  did  not  consider  himself  an 
architect,  and  liad  not  yet  made  those  later  studies,  which  have 
placed  him  among  the  few  extraordinary  names  in  that  form 
of  art. 

The  Pope  managed  to  arrange  some  momentary  agreement 
with  the  heirs  of  Julius,  and  he  returned  again  to  Florence. 
Aware  perhaps  of  the  secrets  of  conspiracies  and  political 
movements,  but  not  taking  part  in  them,  Michelangelo 
seems  to  have  had  an  instinct  of  change  or  danger  beyond  the 
ordinary.  He  may  be  said  to  have  fled  from  Rome  with  a  fore- 
knowledge of  the  curse  about  to  fall  upon  the  city,  its  capture 


42  GREAT     MASTERS 

and  sack,  of  which  we  have  the  terrible  record.  As  later  he 
helped  to  fortify  Rome,  he  may  have  understood  how  defence- 
less was  the  city. 

With  his  return  to  Florence  broke  out  the  revolution,  which 
exiled  the  Medici  and  forced  the  now  republican  city  to  fortify 
in  expectation  of  an  attack  sure  to  come :  again  Michelangelo 
was  called  upon  and  made  Commissary- General.  The  record 
of  his  work  is  too  long  for  more  than  a  mention.  He  threw 
himself  into  the  work  and  may  be  said  to  have  arrested  by 
his  provision  the  taking  of  the  city.  Here  again  his  instinct  of 
danger  and  his  straightforwardness  brought  him  into  trouble. 
He  denounced  as  a  traitor  the  man  who  really  was  to  betray 
the  city.  Instead  of  thanks  he  received  insult,  was  accused  of 
cowardice,  and  in  danger  of  his  life,  he  rode  out  of  the  gates 
with  two  of  his  men  and  made  for  Venice.  There  he  was  pur- 
sued with  supplication  and  promises  and  returned  through 
great  perils  to  help  again  in  the  defence.  In  this  he  worked 
as  before,  devising  ways  of  protection  during  the  year  through 
which  the  war  lasted.  Then  occurred  what  he  had  predicted — 
an  entrance  through  the  treason  of  the  man  he  had  accused. 
The  city  was  captured  and  sacked,  and  Michael  went  into  hid- 
ing to  escape  certain  death.  Clement,  however,  wrote  to  the 
new  government,  asking  protection  and  courteous  treatment 
for  Michelangelo,  who  if  found  was  to  go  on  with  his  work. 


MICHELANGELO  43 

so  that  lie  again  returned  to  the  sculptures  of  the  Chapel, 
"  driven,"  says  Condivi,  "  by  fear  rather  than  love.  And  in- 
deed," continues  Condivi,  "  none  of  these  statues  have  ever  had 
the  last  touch,  though  they  have  been  carried  out  in  such  a 
way  that  the  excellency  is  apparent,  nor  does  the  unfinished 
part  injure  the  absolute  perfection  df  the  work."  These  are  the 
great  statues  of  Italy,  rivals  of  the  Greek,  equal  to  anything 
that  man  has  done  unless  we  suppose  that  the  Minerva  or  the 
Jove  of  Phidias  may  have  reached  further.  They  are  known  by 
names :  The  Thinker,*  Dawn,  Day,  Evening,  and  Night.  The 
Dawn  perhaps  belongs  to  happier  days ;  but  we  do  not  know 
exactly  when  the  others  were  projected,  in  intention  or  in 
sketches,  from  the  sculptor's  thought.  They  are  all  charged  with 
some  abundant  meaning,  inexpressible  by  words,  and  that  all  this 
meaning  is  terrible,  even  in  its  most  gentle  expression,  becomes 
evident  when  we  turn  toward  the  unfinished  statue  of  the  Vir- 
gin and  Child,  whose  lines  and  motion  are  emphatic,  as  was 
Michelangelo's  habit;  for  he  kept  always  to  Savonarola's 
idealisation  of  Mary  as  the  Prophetess.  There  the  meaning  is 
evident — an  intention  of  love  and  peace.  The  statue  of  the 
Duke  Julian  is  apparently  at  peace;  he  even  fingers  the  money 

*  In  Italian  "II  Pensieroso  ;"  we  translate  "The  Thinker,"  but  it  means  not  neces- 
sarily the  follower  of  abstract  thought  but  the  man  who  doubts  the  course  he  shall 
follow. 


44  G  R  E  A  T     M  A  S  T  E  11  S 

in  his  hand  in  a  careless  way,  but  there  is  unsatisfactory  suc- 
cess in  the  flice  and  powerful  body.  He  is  not  apart  from  the 
anxiety  of  mind  that  we  discern  under  the  shadow  of  the  great 
helmet  whicli  hides  the  face  of  the  other  prince. 

We  have  some  verses  by  JMichelangelo  in  answer  to  others 
written  in  praise  of  the  Night,  sleeping  and  dreaming  on  the 
tomb  below  tlie  statue  of  Duke  Julian  : 

"  Grateful  is  sleep,  but  more  to  be  of  stone 
So  long  as  ruin  and  dishonour  reign : 
Neither  to  hear  nor  feel  is  my  great  gain : 
Then  wake  me  not;  speak  in  an  imdertone  " 

Whatever  form  the  thoughts  of  Michael  may  have  taken 
during  this  work,  wiiatever  contempt  he  may  have  felt  for  the  two 
princes  whom  he  knew,  and  for  whose  mean  or  worthless  memory 
he  was  engaged  in  building  a  record  of  art,  he  never  departed 
from  the  dreams  of  beauty  in  which  he  w^orked.  Tlie  beautiful 
bodies,  their  splendid  movements,  the  nobility  of  their  make, 
nay,  even  the  imaginary  fiices  of  the  two  princes,  are  among  the 
most  lovely  creations  of  man  ;  it  is  we  who  are  called  upon  to 
supply  some  hidden  meaning,  all  through  the  beauty  of  ex- 
pression. There  is  no  need  of  calling  up  the  meaning  w^hich  a 
soul  that  hated  meanness  and  brutality  might  well  have  carried 
in  his  mind ;  nor  of  the  lesser  feelings  of  civic  animosity  in  a 
man  who  had  struggled  for  another  ideal  of  the  State.  Tlie 


^IICHELANGELO  45 

thought  of  Life,  divided  into  days,  beginning  in  the  dawn  and 
ending  with  night,  and  of  Eternity  beginning  with  Death,  is 
sufficient.  But  no  hope  is  carried  in  the  endless  round  of  the 
divisions  of  the  Day.  One  might  pursue  this  feeUng  even  into 
the  details  of  the  architectural  forms,  which  are  used  as  a  back- 
ground for  the  figures  and  the  tombs.  They  do  not  suit  tiie 
strict  architectural  mind  any  more  than  the  sculpture  suits  the 
professional  sculptor,  or  Michelangelo's  painting  the  mere 
painter,  but  the  whole  appearance  as  you  and  I  look  at  it  to- 
gether is  a  page  to  challenge  the  powers  of  any  architect  to 
better.  Most  of  the  details  are  not  the  master's  :  parts  are 
probably  changed,  nor  do  we  know  exactly  what  others  were 
meant.  Also  we  miss  to-day  the  rich  paintings  by  John  of 
Udine  which  Michael  ordered  for  the  walls  and  ceiling.  They 
were  w^hitewashed  after  his  death  to  give  place  to  possible 
jobbery  by  the  men  who  used  the  fame  of  Michelangelo  as 
excuse  for  their  own  mediocrity— the  great  penalty  that  fol- 
lows all  noble  ideas  and  all  noble  lives.  Fortunately  only  the 
whitewash  is  there.  Nothing  further  was  ever  done  by  Vasari 
and  other  exploiters  of  the  old  man's  name. 

Again  Michelangelo  feared  for  his  life.  His  work  was  done, 
and  the  brutal  Duke  of  Florence  hated  him  for  many  causes. 
The  Pope  had  forced  him  to  repay  moneys  owing  to  JNIichel- 
angelo,   and   Michelangelo  had  refused   to   help  him   in   the 


46  GREAT     MASTERS 

fortification  intended  for  the  terrorising  of  Florence.  These 
causes  I  mention.  They  are  not  necessary  to  account  for  a 
hatred  of  the  base  for  the  noble.  "  There  is  no  doubt,"  says 
Condi vi,  "  that  but  for  the  Pope  s  protection  Michael  would 
have  been  removed  from  this  world."  In  1534  he  left  Florence 
and  never  returned.  "  It  was  certainly  by  God's  aid  that  he 
happened  to  be  away  from  Florence  when  Clement  died."  Cle- 
ment had  endeavoured,  both  by  advice  and  authority,  to  free 
him  from  a  false  position  with  regard  to  the  advances,  claimed 
by  the  executors  of  Pope  Julius,  to  have  been  made  by  the 
Pope.  The  contrary  was  at  length  proven,  and  a  final  com- 
promise was  made  through  the  Pope,  notwithstanding  Michel- 
angelo's desire  to  carry  out  the  contract  in  full.  But  there  was 
no  one  to  advance  the  moneys,  and  the  result,  as  we  know,  was 
that  of  the  fragmentary  fa9ade  against  which  the  famous  Moses 
is  placed,  which  was  to  have  been  one  of  the  very  many  figures 
necessary  to  the  original  scheme.  Michael  had  fallen  among  law- 
yers and  dishonest  men  of  affairs  who  even  then  managed  to 
falsify  accounts  and  contracts,  that  gave  him  later  still  more 
vexation. 

THE     PAINTING    OF     THE     LAST     JUDGMENT,     1534 

Again  Michelangelo  was  to  be  forced  to  the  making  of  one 
of  his  greatest  works  against  his  will,  and  against  his   vio- 


MICHELANGELO  47 

lent  desire  to  carry  out  the  long-deferred  contract  for  the  tomb 
of  Julius.  He  had  come  back  to  Rome  to  carry  out  at  length 
this  thwarted  purpose.  One  month  later,  October,  1534,  Alex- 
ander Farnese  became  Pope  under  the  name  of  Paul  HL  One 
of  the  Pope's  first  wishes  was  to  have  Michelangelo  in  his 
service.  And  against  the  artist's  prayer  to  allow  him  to  carry 
out  these  engagements  of  honour,  the  Pope  exclaimed :  "  I  have 
entertained  this  wish  for  thirty  years,  and  now  that  I  am  Pope, 
shall  I  not  realise  it  ?  " 

Again  Michelangelo  thought  of  flight  from  Rome  as  an 
escape  and  made  his  preparations;  but  remembering  how  im- 
possible it  had  been  to  escape  from  the  previous  demands  of 
former  Popes,  wherever  he  fled,  he  yielded  to  the  honours  con- 
ferred upon  him,  which  made  him  chief  architect,  sculptor,  and 
painter  with  a  salary  for  life. 

The  previous  Pope  Clement,  after  much  meditation  upon 
subjects,  chose  the  Last  Judgment,  for  the  theme  of  the  wall- 
painting  above  the  altar  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  This  then  Paul 
HL  ordered  to  be  carried  out  by  Michelangelo.  While  the 
necessary  slow  preparations  of  the  wall  were  made,  Michael 
laboured  in  secret  on  the  tomb  of  Pope  Julius,  that  one  desire 
of  his  heart  which  he  was  never  to  see  finished  as  he  had 
planned.  The  Pope's  power,  and  that  fatigue  which  attends  the 
carrying  out  of  enterprises  by  lieirs  and  successors,  managed  to 


48  CHEAT     MASTERS 

induce  a  compromise  by  which  the  Urbiiio  Princes  conscuLcd 
to  a  modification  of  the  scheme,  and  by  Papal  brief  JMichael 
was  ordered  and  allowed  to  enter  into  a  new  form  of  contract, 
the  Pope  acknowledging  at  length  that  it  was  by  obedience  to 
Papal  commands  that  the  artist  had  not  been  able  to  carry  out 
his  engagements. 

Michelangelo  was  at  work  on  the  great  painting  in  1536. 
It  was  completed  in  1541  when  he  was  sixty-six  years  of  age. 
Few  works  of  art  have  elicited  more  contradictory  admiration. 
When  completed  it  seemed  to  the  artists  of  the  day  a  grammar 
of  the  representation  of  the  human  body.  All  the  old  man's 
knowledge  of  anatomy  and  of  the  movement  of  the  human 
body  appeared  to  tlie  men  of  his  day  to  be  expressed  in  this 
great  document  of  learning.  For  most  of  them,  in  a  period  of 
general  deadening  of  feeling,  tlie  astounding  comprehension  of 
the  human  form  was  sufficient  for  the  entire  meaning  and  work. 
At  all  moments  of  change,  technique — the  manner  of  doing 
things — seems  to  be  the  main  object  of  admiration.  And  the 
painting  was  not  only  a  monument  of  consummate  learning, 
never  equalled,  but  was  painted  with  an  ease  and  rapidity 
astonishing  even  in  that  period  of  most  accomplished  and  facile 
workmen.  For  twenty-two  years,  which  had  passed  between 
his  paintings  on  the  vault  and  this  great  task,  JMichael  seems 
to  have  painted  but  once ;  and  yet  the  practical  execution  of 


THE     LAST     JUDGMENT 

THE    SISTINE    CHAPEL 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRA  UN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


MICHELANGELO  49 

the  Last  Judgment  is  still  more  certain  and  facile  than  the 
earlier  work,  which  itself  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  pieces 
of  execution  that  ever  came  from  a  painter's  hand.  We  usually 
find  that  the  abandonment  of  the  practice  of  art  entails  a  cer- 
tain hesitancy  upon  its  being  again  taken  up.  Here,  on  the 
contrary,  we  can  follow  the  artist's  confidence  in  his  own 
powers,  which  we  can  gauge  most  accurately,  as  the  methods 
of  fresco  allow  us  to  tell  just  how  much  work  the  painter  does 
in  a  day.  Its  execution  is  as  careful  and  delicate  as  if  it  were 
slow  work,  while  we  know  that  some  of  these  gigantic  figures, 
replete  with  observation  of  detailed  facts,  have  been  painted  in 
a  single  day.  This  touches  a  point  of  his  character,  a  side  of  the 
mind  or  soul,  that  forced  him,  as  it  has  others,  to  a  fierce  con- 
centration of  will  and  sentiment,  which,  increasing  the  interest 
taken,  drove  attention  and  memory  to  an  extreme  unused  by 
the  ordinary  mind,  except  at  moments  of  great  danger  or  great 
exaltation.  And  these  great  days  of  work  the  artist  paid  for  by 
other  days  of  fatigue.  He  says  of  himself  some  years  before  : 
"  I  have  much  work  to  do  and  am  old  and  unwilling,  so  that  if 
I  work  for  a  day  I  must  rest  for  four."  This  capacity  for  over- 
straining followed  IMichelangelo  through  all  his  life  and  all 
his  work.  We  know  by  the  testimony  of  a  French  sculptor, 
who  saw  him  at  work,  that  he  drove  the  mallet  and  chisel  in 
such  a  way  as  to  seem  to  endanger  the  very  marble  he  was 


50  GREAT     MASTERS 

cutting.  There  is  a  year's  work  only  on  the  painting  which 
occupied  him  most  of  the  time  for  five  years. 

It  is  necessary  to  speak  of  the  make  of  the  great  painting 
because  it  is  one  of  the  great  technical  monuments,  though 
damaged  and  degraded  by  the  indifference  of  man  and  by  the 
necessities  of  use.  Nails  have  been  driven  in  it  to  secure  the 
framework  of  hangings ;  and  the  smoke  of  centuries  of  tapers 
and  of  incense  have  made  of  this,  that  was  once  a  painting, 
only  a  large  and  grim  cartoon.  But  nothing  can  absolutely 
destroy  it,  its  arrangement  of  divisions  is  of  such  importance. 
There  was  also  in  the  mind  of  the  artist  a  certain  balance  of 
light  and  shade  and  use  of  the  same  for  effect,  which  tells,  even 
in  the  poor  photographs  that  accompany  this  inadequate 
notice.  Not  only  is  the  painting  the  greatest  example  of  a  cer- 
tain side  of  all  art  and  the  most  consummate  representation  of 
the  learned  art  of  the  time,  but  it  is  the  last  limit  reached  in 
the  conveying  of  personal  sentiment. 

Perhaps  on  that  side  the  great  work  was  understood  only 
by  a  few,  but  who  can  tell  ?  The  Pope  himself  followed  it  with 
interest,  and  personally  understood  the  terrible  meaning  con- 
veyed in  a  subject  not  usually  placed  over  the  altar  of  Redemp- 
tion. By  the  Pope,  also  a  lover  of  art,  understanding,  perhaps, 
the  intentions  of  the  painter,  his  representation  of  all  these 
figures  as  mostly  nude  seems  to  have  been  accepted  not  only 


MICHELANGELO  51 

with  sympathy,  but  with  the  defence  of  the  artist.  Later,  many 
were  shocked  and  much  offence  was  taken  at  the  supposed 
immodesty.  The  great  Aretino,  the  writer  of  obscene  hterature, 
the  blackmailer  and  journalist,  has  left  somewhere  a  letter  of 
attack  which  may  never  have  been  sent;  but  he  would  not 
have  written  had  he  not  depended  upon  support  from  many 
minds  shocked,  as  still  many  are,  by  the  representation  of  so 
much  nude  form.  So  he  said:  "The  Pagans,  when  they  modelled 
the  Diana,  gave  her  clothes ;  and  here  comes  a  Christian  who, 
because  he  rates  art  higher  than  the  faith,  deems  it  a  proper 
spectacle  to  portray  martyrs  and  virgins  in  improper  attitudes. 
Our  souls  need  the  tranquil  emotion  of  piety  more  than  the 
lively  impressions  of  plastic  art.  May  God,  then,  inspire  his  Holi- 
ness Paul  with  the  same  thoughts  He  instilled  into  Gregory  of 
blessed  memory,  who  rather  chose  to  despoil  Rome  of  the 
proud  statues  of  Pagan  deities,  than  to  let  their  magnificence 
deprive  the  humbler  images  of  the  devotion  of  the  people."  This 
voicing  of  the  infamous  Aretino  has  not  only  been  the  objec- 
tion of  the  libertine  and  the  scoffer,  but  that  of  many  sincerely 
pious  people,  troubled  by  the  fierce  representation  of  Divine 
wrath,  and  by  the  artist's  literal  acceptance  of  a  resurrection 
without  clothing,  which  to  most  of  us  is  a  part  of  ourselves.  It 
may  be  that  in  the  revolution  of  thought  and  taste  nothing  but 
the  conservatism  of  Rome  has  saved  the  painting.  This  protest 


52  GREAT     MASTERS 

of  the  time,  howev  er,  is  worth  noting,  as  showing  that  Michel- 
angelo's use  of  the  nude  with  such  indifference  was  not  merely 
according  to  the  spirit  of  the  time,  but  rather  against  it.  Per- 
haps the  Pope  understood  it  better  than  the  public. 

As  usual  with  Michelangelo,  as  usual  with  the  greater 
artists,  it  is  just  during  the  painting  of  this  great  expression  of 
feeling  that  we  have  no  other  record  of  his  inner  life.  About 
this  time  must  have  begun  the  attachment  to  Vittoria  Colonna, 
"Of  whose  divine  spirit  he  became  enamoured."  At  this  time, 
too,  "with  great  study  and  attention,  he  read  the  sacred  scrip- 
tures, both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments ;  loving,  moreover, 
the  writings  of  Savonarola,  for  whom  he  had  always  had  a 
great  affection,  retaining  in  his  mind,  even  the  memory  of  his 
voice  when  living." 

"  Also  was  loved  by  him  the  beauty  of  the  body,  as  by  one 
wlio  understood  it  best.  And  in  such  kind,  loved,  as  to  shock 
carnal  men  who  cannot  understand  the  love  of  beauty,  except 
dishonestly ;  and  cannot  understand  how,  not  only  with  nim 
no  ugly  thoughts  were  born,  but  that  he  loved  not  only  the 
beauty  of  man,  but  universally  all  beautiful  things,  admiring 
all  with  a  marvelling  affection.  In  that  way  no  man  was 
further  from  the  idea  of  the  making  his  great  painting  a  mere 
expression  of  art,  as  it  has  appeared  to  many,  confined  within 
the  self-imposed  necessity  of  a  given  formula.  '  Why  should 


MICHELANGELO  53 

not,'  is  also  the  feeling  of  many  delicate  souls,  '  such  a  Last 
Judgment  as  that  of  Fra  Angehco's  sweet  pencil  be  there, 
instead  of  the  terrible  page  of  the  impartial  judgment  ?  Are 
there  not  softer  sides  to  the  teaching  of  the  gospel  ?  Are  not 
the  promises  of  forgiveness  and  of  mercy  more  consonant  with 
the  sacred  service  of  the  chapel  ? '  It  may  be  so ;  but  in 
the  domain  of  thought  the  unity  of  the  teaching  of  the  great 
Vault  with  that  of  the  great  painting  above  the  altar,  can 
only  be  carried  out  in  some  such  way.  Even  in  the  forms  of 
the  figures  of  the  Last  Judgment,  we  see  the  continuation  of 
the  spirit  that  animates  those  in  the  Vault  above.  As  those 
are  the  expressions  by  the  body  of  Michelangelo's  mem- 
ories of  the  scripture,  so  it  is  he,  himself,  who  is  placed  in 
each  one  of  the  many  bodies  that  represent  the  elect  and 
the  unforgiven.  He  has  used  the  body  absolutely,  as  a  musi- 
cian uses  notes  to  express  emotion.  Perhaps  separated  more 
and  more  from  other  men  and  resorting  less  and  less  to 
nature  and  to  observation,  he  has  not  mitigated  his  own 
strenuous  feeling  by  passing  it  into  something  seen.  The 
figures  of  the  Last  Judgment  are  more  decidedly  abstractions 
of  feeling.  But  what  fitter  decoration  could  be  used  for  the 
chapel  of  the  successor  to  the  keys  of  St.  Peter?  What 
better  exposition  over  ceiling  and  wall  of  the  idea  of  responsi- 
bility? What  greater  reminder  of  the  seriousness  of  obliga- 


54  GREAT    MASTERS 

tion,  of  the  necessity  of  a  final  accounting  before  which  even 
*  the  just  shall  scarcely  be  secure '  ?  "  "  Vix  Justus  sit  securus." 

All  the  more  does  one  feel  this  when  the  pomp  of  the 
world  and  of  fashion  fills  the  chapel,  and  in  reserved  places  sit 
the  elect  and  the  ordinators  of  law  and  justice. 

The  great  prose  of  the  Dies  Ivse  :  "  That  day  of  wrath, 
that  dreadful  day,  Shall  the  whole  world  in  ashes  lay.  As 
David  and  the  Sibyls  say,"  echoes  also  in  the  pictures  on  roof 
and  wall.  David  is  there  and  the  Sibyls  and  all  the  Prophets ; 
and  their  teaching  is  unfolded  in  the  meaning  of  the  Last 
Judgment. 

The  sweetness  of  the  earlier  work  does  not  appear  in  the 
later  design  above  the  altar  ;  but  the  other  great  meanings  are 
told  without  flinching.  Pope  and  prince  can  read  them 
written  large.  The  Christ  above  is  now  the  Eternal  Judge. 
Death  and  Hell  rise  from  their  sleep  below  His  throne.  Be- 
fore His  gesture  even  the  elect  tremble,  and  Mary  feels  her 
own  lowliness  as  a  creature.  Peter  pleads  the  duties  of  his 
office ;  each  martyr  begs  his  testimony  remembered.  What- 
ever prelate  looked  at  the  gigantic  painting  could  see  that 
its  significance  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  hymn  sung  about 
him,  and  that  before  its  meaning  all  men  were  alike.  "  Thou 
who  didst  forgive  the  prostitute  and  the  thief,  to  me  also  the 
just  and  the  virtuous,  thou  hast  given  a  hope." 


MICHELANGELO  55 

How  much  it  says  that  this  story  has  hung  above  the  Popes 
officiating  in  splendour  of  office  ;  accepted  as  preaching  the 
severe  doctrine  of  the  Church  which  allows  no  position  and 
no  sanctity  to  be  free  from  reproach  and  from  possibility  of  sin. 

The  fame  of  the  Last  Judgment  spread  through  Italy  as 
before  had  happened  with  each  of  the  other  great  works  of 
Michael.  Again  he  was  acclaimed  as  the  one  great  master, 
notwithstanding  those  murmurs  of  dissatisfaction  which  began 
then  and  which  will  always  last,  so  long  as  we  do  not  under- 
stand the  terrible  sermon  preached  in  this  picture,  not  meant 
to  please  but  to  impress. 

Again  for  Michelangelo  began  "  the  tragedy  of  Julius's 
tomb,"  as  Condivi  calls  it.  Now  he  thought  himself  free  to 
begin  again.  He  had  been  insulted  about  it.  Lies  were  circu- 
lated and  brought  up  to  him  about  his  non-completion  of  the 
work,  and  yet  now  again  tlie  new  Pope  insisted  upon  more 
paintings  and  frescoes  for  the  Pauline  Chapel. 

Michelangelo  made  a  final  and  painful  compromise,  using 
for  the  moment  the  famous  Moses  that  had  been  made  for 
the  tomb  and  giving  the  designs  for  other  parts  to  be  carried 
out  by  chosen  workmen.  Business  details,  quarrels  between 
his  assistants,  began  again  to  take  up  his  time. 

The  monument  as  we  have  it  expresses  just  what  has  hap- 
pened. It  is  a  fragment  or  a  makeshift  for  what  could  not  be. 


56  GREAT     MASTERS 

Even  this  he  obtained  by  petitioning  the  Pope.  For  a  time 
the  artist  suffered  all  the  pain  of  the  failure  of  a  lifetime's  hope 
and  of  a  false  stigma  put  upon  his  integrity.  Even  at  that 
time  he  was  being  accused  of  having  lent  out  money  which  he 
had  received  on  account  of  the  execution  of  the  monument, 
while  on  the  contrary,  he  had  deposited  fourteen  hundred 
crowns  as  guarantee  of  his  carrying  out  the  work — an  extrem- 
ity of  injustice  in  his  case  all  the  greater  as  addressed  to  the 
one  person  who  had  struggled  faithfully  for  years  against  fate 
to  carry  out  an  agreement  from  which  he  had  been  driven  by 
the  other  party  to  it.  His  own  words  and  his  private  letters 
describe  his  feelings.  "Enough,"  he  says,  "for  the  loyalty  of 
thirty-six  years  and  having  given  myself  of  my  own  free  will 
to  others  ;  I  deserve  no  better.  Painting  and  sculpture,  labour 
and  good  faith  have  been  my  ruin.  Better  would  it  have 
been  for  me  if  I  had  set  myself  to  making  matches  in  my 
youth."  Then  he  turns  to  the  representative  of  the  Pope, 
who  is  urging  him  to  begin  the  other  new  work,  and  says : 
"  Your  lordship  sends  to  tell  me  that  I  must  begin  to  paint 
and  have  no  anxiety.  I  answer  that  one  paints  with  the 
brain  and  not  with  the  hand.  He  who  has  not  his  brains  at 
command  produces  work  that  shames  him;  therefore  until 
this  business  is  settled  I  can  do  nothing  good.  The  ratifica- 
tion of  this  last  contract  does  not    come.   I  am  daily  stoned 


MOSES 

CHUFvCH    OF    SAN    PIETRO    IN    VINCOLI,    ROM] 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY      ALIXARI 


MICHELANGELO  57 

as  though  I  had  crucified  Christ ;  my  whole  youth  and  man- 
hood have  been  lost,  tied  down  to  this  tomb  of  Julius.  With 
all  my  immense  labour,  I  toil  to  grow  poor.  I  am  not  a  thief 
and  usurer,  but  a  citizen  of  Florence,  a  noble,  the  son  of  an 
honest  man.  In  the  first  year  of  his  pontificate,  Juhus  com- 
missioned me  to  make  his  tomb  ;  and  I  stayed  eight  months 
at  Carrara,  quarrying  marbles.  Afterward  the  Pope  decided 
not  to  build  his  tomb  during  his  lifetime  and  set  me  down  to 
painting.  [That  is  the  way  he  speaks  of  the  Vault  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel.]  Then  he  kept  me  two  years  at  Bologna 
casting  his  statue  in  bronze,  which  has  been  destroyed.  After 
that  I  returned  to  Rome  and  stayed  with  him  till  his  death ; 
always  keeping  my  house  open  without  post  or  pension ; 
living  on  the  money  of  the  tomb  since  I  had  no  other  income. 
After  the  death  of  Julius,  the  executor  wished  the  tomb  on  a 
larger  scale ;  that  part  of  the  mural  scheme  I  finished  which 
is  now  walled  in,  and  made  the  figures  I  have  at  home.  Then 
Leo,  not  wishing  me  to  work  at  the  tomb,  wanted  me  to 
complete  the  facade  at  San  Lorenzo."  Then  he  relates  how 
he  had  to  borrow  money  for  the  freightage  of  more  marbles, 
and  kept  workmen,  and  boarded  them,  and  at  last  quarrelled 
with  the  Pope  and  fled  to  Florence.  Nor  was  he  able  to 
extricate  himself,  absolutely,  for  a  long  time,  the  representa- 
tives of  Pope  Julius  delaying  their  decision  for  no  purpose 


58  GREAT     MASTERS 

apparent  to  us  of  to-day ;  but  perhaps,  according  to  Italian 
ways,  waiting  for  some  possible  change  in  the  Papacy. 

We  see  the  great  Moses  of  the  tomb  out  of  its  destined 
place.  Important  as  it  is,  we  shall  never  see  it  right,  for  it 
was  to  be  but  one  small  part  of  a  great  arrangement  that  we 
do  not  know  exactly.  So  for  the  famous  Captives,  as  they 
are  called,  which  now  rest  in  France.  Rarely  has  the  rhythm 
of  the  body  been  so  wonderfully  sung.  Even  the  special 
liking  of  Michael  for  insisting  upon  a  great  living  capacity 
in  the  body,  as  in  the  tremendous  chest  of  the  statue,  helps 
a  balance  that  perhaps  the  Greek  sculptor  would  have  had 
more  evenly  adjusted.  The  expression  of  thought  in  dream, 
that  belongs  to  every  part  of  the  body,  makes  of  the  sleeping 
Captive  a  special  creation  of  sculpture ;  a  perfect  example  of 
what  separates  its  maker  from  all  other  artists,  the  using  of 
the  entire  human  form  as  expression  of  a  sentiment. 

The  Moses,  aggressive  and  terrible,  belonged,  we  know,  to  the 
notion  of  strenuous  effort  and  action  upon  men.  The  dream- 
ing youth  embodies  perhaps  the  idea  of  eternal  repose.  Per- 
haps the  artist  may  have  intended  some  allusion  to  the  resur- 
rection, the  waking  out  of  human  sleep.  The  mass  of  stone 
behind  him,  not  chiselled  out,  has  been  thought  by  some  to 
represent  a  cynocephalus,  which  the  learning  of  that  day 
might  have  considered  an  Egyptian  symbol  of  immortality. 


MICHELANGELO  59 

This  is  a  work  of  JNIichelangelo's  full  physical  strength. 
He  himself  realised  and  has  told  us  that  even  when  the  forces 
of  his  body  were  at  their  worst  he  still  felt  youth  in  his  mind. 
But  throughout  his  life  it  is  most  evident  that  the  idea  of 
another  world  remained  continuously  with  him.  It  went  along 
with  the  most  intense  and  passionate  admiration  for  the  beau- 
tiful, as  seen  by  the  senses,  and  with  a  temperament  of  absorb- 
ing love.  It  is  this  unsatisfied  capacity  for  love  which  informs 
all  his  actions  and  all  the  expressions  of  his  thoughts.  He 
himself  has  explained  the  balance  held  upon  passion  by  the 
thought  of  eternal  responsibility.  *'  I  may  remind  you  that  a 
man  who  would  return  unto  and  enjoy  his  own  self  ought  not 
to  indulge  much  in  festivities,  but  to  think  on  death.  This 
thought  is  the  only  one  which  makes  us  know  our  proper 
selves,  which  holds  us  together  in  the  bond  of  our  own 
natures,  which  prevents  us  from  being  stolen  away  by  kins- 
men, friends,  great  men  of  genius,  ambition,  avarice,  and  those 
other  sins  and  vices  that  filch  the  man  from  himself  Mar- 
vellous is  the  operation  of  this  thought  of  death,  which  pre- 
serves and  supports  those  who  think  on  death,  and  defends 
them  from  all  human  passion."  So  that  he  looked  at  death 
as  the  entrance  into  reality ;  upon  the  thought  of  death  as  a 
means  of  keeping  hold  of  one's  self  in  a  world  of  illusions.  So 
he  wrote : 


60  GREAT    MASTERS 

"  Mortality  doth  little  comprehend. 
Before  we  understand  we  must  have  died." 

Hence,  also,  to  him,  beauty  of  the  flesh  is  as  a  reflection  of  the 
divine  idea,  which  will  become  clearer  to  the  soul  after  death 
than  in  the  body.  These  ideas  are  so  absolutely  a  part  of 
Michelangelo  that  they  serve  as  guide  in  the  understanding  of 
his  devotion  to  the  great  lady,  Vittoria  Colonna,  about  whom 
he  spoke  much,  about  whom  he  wrote  beautiful  verses,  and  to 
whom  he  devoted  much  time  in  his  busy  later  life. 

The  boy  Michelangelo  had  been,  we  remember,  brought 
up  among  admirers  of  Plato,  newly  read  in  the  Greek.  The 
ideas  of  an  imagery  of  the  divine  here  below  and  of  a  double 
existence  were  as  habitual  to  him  as  the  teachings  of  the  moral 
code  by  Savonarola. 

*'  The  heart  is  not  the  life  of  love  like  mine. 
The  love  I  love  thee  with  has  none  of  it. 
For  hearts  to  sin  and  mortal  thought  incline 
And  for  love's  habitation  are  iinfit. 
God,  when  our  souls  were  parted  from  Him,  made 
Of  me  an  eye — of  thee  splendour  and  light. 
Even  in  the  parts  of  thee  which  are  to  fade 
Thou  hast  the  glory ;  I  have  only  sight. 
Fire  from  its  heat  you  may  not  analyse, 
Nor  worship  from  e^;ernal  beauty  take. 
Which  deifies  the  lover  as  he  bows. 


MICHELANGELO  61 

Thou  hast  that  Paradise  all  within  thine  eyes 
Where  first  I  loved  thee.    'Tis  for  that  love's  sake 
My  soul's  on  fire  with  thine,  beneath  thy  brows."* 

The  nature  of  this  love  has  been  naturally  misunderstood, 
but  only  through  wilfulness ;  for  the  record  of  this  beautiful 
friendship  is  quite  clear.  His  meeting  with  her  was  a  consola- 
tion, and,  as  he  explained,  a  bettering  of  himself.  She  encour- 
aged the  religious  turn  of  his  mind ;  and  her  courtesy  and 
feminine  tact  soothed  the  moments  of  despondency  and 
fatigue  which  came  upon  him  in  reaction  from  his  passionate 
devotion  to  his  art.  But  all  of  his  affections  were  passionate ; 
those  for  whom  he  cared,  he  cared  for  jealously;  and  though  he 
was  a  hard  hater  of  all  that  he  thought  base,  he  was  infinitely 
tender  and  kind  to  dependants  and  people  in  affliction. 

In  these  last  years  when  he  was  becoming  rich,  we  know  by 
the  private  records  of  his  letters  that  his  nephew  was  in- 
structed to  seek  out  persons  living  in  decent  distress,  who  were 
to  be  helped  without  its  being  known  to  be  from  him.  Indeed, 
he  sometimes  appeared  to  members  of  his  family  as  too  care- 
less of  his  own  interests,  a  charge  he  resented  with  a  rigour 
that  belonged  to  the  other  side  of  his  nature. 

It  was  during  these  times  of  severe  introspection  that  he 
consented  to  carry  out  the   frescoes  of  the  Pauline  Chapel, 

*  Translation  of  John  Jay  Chapman. 


62  GREAT     MASTERS 

which  occupied  several  tedious  years,  broken  by  attacks  of 
severe  illness  and  infirmities  that  never  left  him.  He  was,  as 
he  said  to  his  friend  Vasari,  too  old  to  paint  the  large  surfaces 
of  fresco  which  require  being  carried  out  to  completion  in  their 
divisions  on  a  single  day.  The  painting,  completed  when  he 
was  seventy-five  years  old,  is  not  deficient  in  skill ;  but  there  is 
an  appearance  of  fatigue,  a  want  of  interest,  which  shows  it  to 
be  task  work  done  to  satisfy  others  with  a  mind  otherwise 
absorbed.  It  was  not  only  illness  that  interrupted  his  work  in 
painting,  but  the  engineering  and  architectural  projects  of  the 
Pope. 

In  April,  1546,  he  wrote  answering  the  request  of  King 
Francis  the  First  of  France  for  some  work  by  himself.  He 
speaks  of  being  much  occupied  by  Pope  Paul,  though  he 
desires  to  serve  the  King  in  his  art.  Then  he  adds,  in  a  vein 
that  shows  his  direction  of  thought,  but  also  a  humour  which 
recalls  the  last  letters  of  the  Japanese  Hokusai :"  Should 
death  interrupt  this  desire,  then  if  it  be  possible  to  carve  or 
paint  in  the  other  world,  I  shall  not  fail  to  do  so  where  no  one 
becomes  old." 

When  he  thus  wrote  he  could  not  know  that  he  was  yet  to 
attain,  by  heavy  work  and  much  study  and  devotion,  fame  as 
an  architect  as  great  as  was  his  already  as  painter  and  sculptor. 
He  was  still  to  leave  for  future  ages  the  Dome  of  St.  Peter,  a 


MICHELANGELO  63 

few  fragments  of  sculpture  of  the  most  intense  expression  of 
feeling,  and  verses  that  rival  his  expressions  in  the  other  arts. 

To  painting  and  sculpture  he  bids  adieu.  The  feeling  in- 
creases with  him  that  he  has  cared  too  much  for  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  "  the  human  form  divine."  So  his  verse  records  ; 

"  Painting  nor  sculpture  now  can  lull  to  rest 
My  soul  that  turns  to  His  great  love  on  high, 
Whose  arms  to  clasp  us  on  the  cross  were  spread." 

During  his  remaining  years  he  draws,  however;  often  makes 
schemes  for  others,  but  no  longer  with  anything  more  than  the 
intention  of  record ;  occasionally  he  works  at  marble,  partly  for 
the  mere  exercise  of  the  body,  and  yet  once  certainly  with  the 
intention,  unfulfilled,  of  leaving  an  expression  of  his  last  feel- 
ings to  be  placed  upon  his  tomb. 

This,  the  most  pathetic  of  all  his  work,  was  never  used  for 
that  end.  The  same  misguided  admiration  that  pursued  him 
all  his  life  has  directed  the  ordering  of  his  sepulchre,  devised 
in  an  absolutely  different  notion  of  life  and  death  than  was  his. 
The  broken  and  unfinished  group  of  the  dead  Christ  supported 
by  his  Mother  and  friends  is  half  hidden  in  the  twilight  behind 
the  altar  of  the  Cathedral  of  Florence.  Rightly  said  the  Jew- 
ish master  (Rabbi  Trypho) :  "It  is  not  for  thee  to  finish  the 
work,  nor  art  thou  free  to  desist  therefrom  ;  and  faithful  is  the 
Master  who  will  pay  thee  thy  reward." 


64  GREAT     MASTERS 

He  had  worked  upon  it  at  long  intervals,  and  displeased  by 
defects  in  the  marble,  and  suffering  from  the  despondency 
which  so  often  followed  his  struggles  for  expression,  he  began 
to  break  the  statue;  in  another  of  his  usual  moods  of  kindness 
he  gave  it  to  one  of  his  servants,  and  so  it  comes  down  to  us. 
It  is  the  most  personal  of  all  the  works  of  the  most  personal 
of  artists.  It  is  he  himself  who  in  the  character  of  Nicodemus 
supports  the  dead  Saviour  and  relieves  the  JNIother  from  the 
heavy  burden.  The  ftice  of  the  old  artist,  wrapped  in  a  cowl, 
looks  down  with  infinite  tenderness  upon  the  group  of  the 
Mother  and  the  Son.  Unfinished  and  fragmentary  as  it  is,  it 
is  the  most  complete  expression  of  the  subject  known  to  art. 

As  if  to  meet  the  necessity  for  work  of  this  man's  nature, 
when  he  had  begun  to  turn  away  from  painting  and  sculptures 
the  Popes,  one  after  the  other,  commanded  his  services  as 
architect  and  engineer.  He  took  part  in  the  planning  and 
carrying  out  of  the  fortifications  of  Rome,  bringing  to  the  task 
his  former  experience  and,  of  course,  that  quality  of  mind  which 
had  always  answered  the  call  made  upon  it. 

He  had  evaded  all  requests  to  return  to  Florence;  though 
separated  from  political  antagonisms,  he  knew  enough  not  to 
trust  the  new  Medici.  All  courtesy  came  to  him  now  from 
them,  as  well  as  from  all  the  princes  and  rulers  with  whom 
he  had  relations.  The  great  difficulties  with  the  Princes  of 


THE    CAPTIVE 

THE    LOUVRE,    PARIS 
PHOTOGRAPH      H  Y      li  K  A  U  X,      f  L  E  M  E  N  T     &      CO 


MICHELANGELO  65 

Urbino  about  the  tomb  of  Julius  had  been  adjusted.  But 
during  the  remainder  of  his  career  he  met  again,  from  the 
banded  interests  of  others,  the  same  obstinate  ill-will  which 
had  followed  him  so  far. 

Called  upon  to  take  up  architectural  work,  he  stood  in  the 
way  of  many  others  coveting  the  position  or  the  profits.  The 
greatest  of  all  these  undertakings  was  that  of  the  charge  of 
completing  St.  Peter's.  Of  the  many  others  we  need  not 
speak,  but  the  great  Dome  remains  as  important  a  landmark 
in  architecture  as  his  other  records  of  achievement  in  painting 
and  sculpture.  He  devoted  himself  through  pure  obedience 
to  this  task,  refusing  all  compensation  during  the  remainder  of 
his  life ;  offering  his  unpaid  services  in  that  way  both  to  his 
master  and  to  the  service  of  religion.  He  had  to  struggle 
against  the  opposing  ideas  of  the  architects  of  the  monument 
who  held  by  later  plans  than  those  of  the  first  devisor ;  and 
their  enmity  and  misapprehension  of  what  was  best  aimed  at 
a  continuous  thwarting  of  all  his  intentions.  He  managed, 
however,  to  bring  back  the  building  to  its  former  plan,  that  of 
his  greatest  enemy,  Bramante,  upon  whom  lie  has  left  this 
noble  judgment :  "  It  cannot  be  denied,"  he  said,  "  that 
Bramante's  talent  as  an  architect  was  equal  to  that  of  any 
one  from  the  times  of  the  ancients  till  now.  He  laid  the  first 
plan  of  St.  Peter's,  clear  and  simple,  and  all  who  have  departed 


66  GREAT     MASTERS 

from  his  scheme  have  departed  from  the  truth."  We  have  not 
the  great  Cathedral  as  Michael  wished  it,  nor  can  we  see  in  it 
the  creation  of  his  genius.  But  the  one  thing  which  Michel- 
angelo left  to  his  successors  in  the  work  is  the  cupola  whose 
outline  remains  as  an  unparalleled  idea.  It  is  the  mark  of 
Rome  and  the  expression  of  Rome's  grandeur.  Michel- 
angelo's life  might  well  close  upon  this  final  expression  of 
himself.  Little  else  occupied  his  last  years.  The  work  and 
its  necessities  were  sufficient  for  the  strongest  life.  We 
know  this  last  portion  of  the  great  man's  career  by  the  records 
of  this  tedious  work,  and  what  remains  of  his  poems,  which  in 
their  rude  and  unfinished  form  tell  us  how  the  fire  never  burnt 
out  as  long  as  any  place  remained  to  hold  it.  But  he  had 
retired  within  himself  and  the  ideas  of  religion  filled  the  de- 
mands of  his  desires.  He  had  been  disappointed  in  many 
things :  his  ideal  of  civic  life  had  disappeared  from  the  world  ; 
he  had  not  accomplished  most  of  the  work  his  heart  was  bent 
on ;  he  viewed  with  austerity  his  own  excessive  enjoyment 
of  beauty ;  he  had  met  few  other  lives  that  could  equally 
move  along  with  his  own.  Perhaps  he  was  conscious  of  his 
enormous  importance,  but  he  was  modest  beyond  all  other 
men  and  devoid  of  what  is  called  ambition. 

One  great  satisfaction  he  must  have  felt :  he  had  toiled  for 
the  keeping  of  his  family  in  their  station  of  life,  and  the  for 


MICHELANGELO  67 

tune  which  he  left  was  enough  to  guarantee  these  chances. 
This  was  the  moderate  end  for  which  he  had  created  the  mar- 
vels of  art  which  belong  to  his  name. 

His  death  marked  for  all  Italy  the  close  of  the  great  period. 
There  was  a  contest  between  Rome  and  Florence  as  to  which 
city  should  keep  his  body.  Florence,  however,  keeps  him — and 
gave  him  a  princely  funeral — and  the  usual  unpoetic  tomb  that 
serves  for  princes.  Though  both  cities,  and  most  men  of  the 
time,  misstated  and  misapprehended  many  of  the  reasons  for 
his  greatness,  they  were  not  in  so  far  different  from  most  of 
us.  It  has  taken  many  centuries  and  many  minds  to  build  a 
sufficient  intellectual  appreciation  of  the  man  who  perhaps 
was  the  greatest  of  all  artists. 


PORTRAIT    OF    HIMSELF 

UFFIZI    GALLERY,    FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BROGI 


RAPHAEL 


r 


THE  MADONNA  OF  THE  TEMPI  FAMILY 

ROYAL    PINAKOTHEK.    MUNICH 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     HANFSTAENGL 


RAPHAEL 


However  desirous  an  artist  may  be  of  glorifying  that  type  of 
artistic  beatitude  whom  we  call  Raphael,  he  must  needs  hesi- 
tate. It  is  not  only  that  he  may  have  to  analyse  the  move- 
ments of  a  mind  that  has  floated  easily  through  most  of  the 
spaces  of  art,  marking  its  limits  as  if  with  the  brush  of  a  wing, 
but  he  has  to  make  a  picture  of  Success  itself,  of  that  Fortune 
which  is  so  impenetrable  that  we  are  still  pagans  in  our  view 
and  unwilling  to  believe  that  it  can  be  built,  as  the  pagans 
themselves  made  out,  of  smaller  and  more  visible  powers. 

The  easy  and  successful  life  of  Raphael  of  Urbino  is  so 
completely  one  with  the  effect  of  his  work  upon  us,  that  his 
very  good  fortune  seems  part  of  the  means  used  by  him.  Every 
one  knows  something  about  him,  every  one  has  seen  something 
by  him.  I  have  seen  his  Madonnas  even  in  the  huts  of  Canni- 
bal Land.  And  to  make  this  universal  appreciation  still  more 
extraordinary,  we  have  the  strange  fact  that  any  cheap  copy 
of  some  creation  of  his  which  appeals  most  distinctly  to  the 
feeling  is  sufficient  to  tell  us :  here  is  a  separate  creation, 
dependent  upon  something  in  it,  so  that  its  actual  form  may 


72  GREAT     MASTERS 

be  insufficient,  but  its  life  persists  far  into  the  merest  sugges- 
tion of  what  the  original  was.  Such  is  the  extraordinary  life 
belonging  to  many  of  his  invented  people— a  life  such  as 
belongs  to  some  few  statues  of  the  Greeks.  And  yet  in  the 
originals  we  feel  the  slightest  injury  that  time  or  the  restorer 
has  inflicted.  Sometimes  we  even  feel  that  they  themselves  are 
not  so  perfect,  that  they  are  deficient  in  the  very  quality  that 
still  is  the  essence  of  the  work. 

Perhaps  a  mere  story  of  the  man's  short  life,  which  again 
touches  us,  as  determined  by  the  foreordaining  that  abridges 
all  that  is  most  beautiful,  will  be  a  manner  of  getting  closer  to 
an  understanding  of  how  he  came  not  to  be  but  to  flower. 

He  was  born  in  a  lovely  country,  ruled  by  princes  liked  of 
their  people  and  caring  for  them.  The  fortunes  of  his  family 
had  been  broken  by  war,  and  his  father  had  taken  to  the  trade 
of  the  painter.  For  the  position  of  the  artist,  in  the  smaller 
places  of  Italy,  was  not  like  that  of  the  important  persons  who 
were  changing  the  meaning  of  their  profession  in  the  great 
centres  of  Florence  and  of  Rome.  This  was  at  Urbino  in  1483. 
The  father,  Giovanni  Santi,  was  literate;  what  we  know  of 
the  mother  is  pleasantly  connected  with  the  fate  of  the  son,  if 
the  little  picture  painted  by  the  elder  Sanzio — woman  and 
child — is  a  portrait  of  these  two.  It  is  a  mere  fancy,  but  a 
pretty  one,  that  the  painter  of  the  Madonna  and  the  infant 


RAPHAEL  73 

Christ  should  have  been  foreshadowed  in  this  domestic  frag- 
ment. Of  this  mother,  the  boy  Raphael  knew  little;  and  his 
father  married  again  and  died  when  Raphael  was  still  quite 
young ;  but  he  may  have  given  him  early  lessons  and  trans- 
mitted certain  tendencies  of  feeling  to  this  extremely  sensitive 
mind. 

At  fifteen,  perhaps,  the  boy  went  to  Perugia,  where  there 
were  artists  and  what  we  call  schools  ;  that  is  to  say,  appren- 
ticeship in  the  workshop  of  painters.  Pietro  Vanucci,  called 
Perugino,  took  him  into  his  studio  at  the  age  of  seventeen ; 
perhaps  he  had  some  instruction  ,at  Urbino  from  Timoteo 
Viti,  who  was  always  his  friend.  And  the  one  great  gift  of 
Raphael,  a  power  of  almost  instant  assimilation,  must  have 
enriched  him  from  the  earliest  times  by  whatever  he  liked  or 
tried  to  understand.  All  this  early  life  is  entangled  with  the 
work  of  Perugino,  though  it  is  made  out  that  some  of  the  very 
early  pieces  accredited  to  the  more  famous  youth  have  a 
something  harking  back  to  an  earlier  influence.  Even  these, 
however,  youthful  and  timid,  whatever  they  may  be  as  results 
of  importance,  possess  the  undefinable  mark  which  is  that  of 
Raphael  and  which  passes  analysis;  it  is  perhaps  even  more 
distinctly  visible  than  in  the  first  important  ones  which  he 
works  out,  either  with  his  master  or  from  his  master's  designs, 
or  as  a  manner  of  duplicate,  or  of  using  a  theme  which  the 


74  GREAT    MASTERS 

master  has  treated.  For  we  are  speaking  of  a  period  in  the 
development  of  the  practice  of  art  whose  features  we  have  for- 
gotten. In  those  days,  as  in  the  Japan  of  to-day,  the  work  of  the 
master  was  not  only  the  example,  but  the  model  and  the  store- 
house of  the  pupil.  He  borrowed  this  or  that  scheme  and  filled 
in  with  fragments  of  his  own ;  or  he  imitated  fragments  to  put 
into  his  own  new  scheme.  And  so  every  one  borrowed  one  from 
the  other ;  it  not  being  an  injury  but  a  manner  of  admiration, 
and  often  a  possible  help  when,  as  often  happened,  one  artist 
called  upon  others  to  help  him  carry  out  his  work.  In  some 
such  way  Pinturicchio,  also  of  Perugia,  called  upon  Raphael  for 
help  in  his  work  at  Siena.  It  seems  also  as  if  the  youngster 
destined  to  be  the  more  famous  based  some  of  his  early  work 
on  the  studies  of  Pinturicchio. 

Already  Raphael  had  been  asked  to  paint  an  important 
work,  a  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  for  the  altar  of  the  Francis- 
can Church  in  Perugia.  The  arrangement  of  the  whole  picture 
and  types  of  figures  are  a  manner  of  duphcate  of  his  master; 
but  there  appears  a  something  more  intense,  and  a  larger  look 
which  marks  the  beginning  of  another  man.  So  in  another 
painting,  the  Marriage  of  the  Virgin,  there  is  but  a  duplication 
of  the  same  story  by  Perugino.  But  another  meaning  has  filled 
it  all,  made  another  choice  and  build  of  architecture,  changed 
here  and  there  a  little  more  and  a  little  less  of  the  details 


MARRIAGE    OF    THE    VIRGIN 

THE    BRERA,    MILAN 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BROGI 


RAPHAEL  75 

which  were  common  property  at  that  day.  The  whole  has  a 
charm  of  simphcity  and  grace,  and,  if  I  may  say  so,  of  conven- 
tionahty  which  dehghts  us  to-day  as  if  the  ideahstic  presenta- 
tion of  a  younger  world.  And  one  of  the  great  qualities  of  his 
master  and  his  companions  remains  attached  to  it;  the  notion 
of  the  picture  being  a  place ;  a  place  set  apart,  a  space  within 
a  space.  So  that  the  lines  that  make  it,  the  gradations  that  fill 
it,  are  complete  and  do  not  suggest  any  extension  outside  of 
borders  of  the  scene.  It  is  an  undefinable  feeling  and  yet  a 
tradition  belonging  to  many  of  these  men  in  common ;  and  it 
connects  with  what  develops  further  and  further  until  we  see 
the  make  of  the  picture  later,  in  such  building  of  light  and 
shade  as  we  know  in  Rembrandt.  This  subtle  quality  is  not 
such  a  one  as  makes  merely  a  pleasant  arrangement ;  it  is  as  if 
the  eye  wished  to  see  no  farther:  as  if  seeing  outside  of  the 
edge  would  disturb  one's  pleasure ;  later  in  the  single  figures 
and  portraits  of  Raphael  we  shall  feel  this  assertion  of  the 
picture;  where  his  portrait  ends,  wherever  the  figure  is  cut, 
that  is  sufficient — we  do  not  care  for  the  part  of  it  not  repre- 
sented— it  never  occurs  to  us  to  think  of  it. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  no  small  powers,  original  and  ac- 
quired, that,  after  having  worked  at  Siena,  the  young  Raphael 
came  up  to  Florence  in  1504  with  recommendation  of  the 
Duchess   of  Urbino    to  the   Gonfaloniere.    There  he   found 


76  GREAT     MASTERS 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Michelangelo  designing  the  famous 
cartoons,  now  lost,  which  were  among  their  greatest  achieve- 
ments, and  which  affected  permanently  the  entire  discipline  of 
Italian  and  European  art.  Both  these  men  he  must  have  stud- 
ied to  some  extent,  as  he  also  studied  the  earlier  painters  whose 
works  were  on  the  walls  of  the  churches.  Indeed,  their  memory 
lasted  to  that  extent  that  Raphael,  long  after,  merely  trans- 
posed one  of  the  great  figures  of  Masaccio  into  his  design  of 
Paul  preaching  at  Athens.  The  gentle  youth  formed  a  friend- 
ship with  the  Monk  Fra  Bartolommeo,  himself  a  serious  stu- 
dent and  painter,  though  only  from  obedience.  Once  upon  a 
time  he  had  given  up  art  and  entered  the  cloister,  and  had 
burned  publicly  the  pagan  works  of  his  youth  in  the  great  bon- 
fire which  the  puritans  of  Savonarola's  preaching  built  in  horror 
of  the  excesses  of  art  and  luxury.  There  was  an  interchange 
of  knowledge  between  these  two  men;  and  in  this  beautiful 
companionship  and  in  the  absorption  of  the  influences  of  Flor- 
ence, which  were  to  determine  the  future,  Raphael  began  to 
form  the  style  by  which  we  know  him  best.  He  has  said  him- 
self that  he  paid  attention  to  everything.  It  must  also  be  said 
that  he  made  all  his  own,  that  it  was  rather  a  renewal  of  him- 
self than  an  accumulation  of  knowledge  which  defines  this 
continuous  increase  in  the  wealth  of  his  resources.  Therein,  he 
differs  absolutely  from  imitators ;  either  those  who  need  to  have 


THE    MADONNA    OF    THE    CHAIR 

PITTI    PALACE,    FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH    BY     ANDERSON 


RAPHAEL  77 

a  staff  to  lean  on,  or  those  who  try  to  find  a  sure  method  of 
approval  by  themselves  and  others  in  the  reference  to  a  stand- 
ard of  something  already  done.  That  is  not  the  imitation  of 
Raphael ;  and  never  does  he  seem  more  original  than  in  the 
ideas  that  he  borrows.  He  seem  to  show  to  what  further  use 
the  concealed  life  of  the  thing  he  admires  can  be  turned.  So 
Michelangelo,  when  he  merely  intends  to  copy  the  early 
Giotto,  fills  with  his  enormous  knowledge  of  the  figure  the  beau- , 
tiful  folds  of  the  garments  that  he  is  transcribing.  For  centu- 
ries Raphael  has  influenced  others  and  told  them  secrets  which 
they  did  not  understand.  His  imitators  have  never  perceived 
that  he  had  been  set  apart  and  had  received  a  divine  commis- 
sion, proven  from  the  first  moment,  at  which  in  his  first  imi- 
tations he  infused  into  manners  that  he  found  already  made, 
the  undefinable  charm  that  we  know  by  the  name  of  Raphael. 
Certainly  the  earlier  paintings  of  Mother  and  Child,  which 
are  still  further  back  than  those  of  the  Madonna  cycle  painted 
in  Florence,  have  the  purity  and  the  sweetness  which  the  world 
knows.  But  during  those  four  years  in  Florence  he  painted  a 
series  of  poems  in  honour  of  the  Blessed  Mother  and  her  Child, 
in  which  he  unfolded  the  bud  to  the  full  bloom  of  a  perfect 
flower.  His  story,  like  that  of  Michelangelo,  is  that  of  a 
series  of  wonders,  and  that  these  few  years  should  have  been 
sufficient  for  the  production  of  so  much  perfection  is  one  of 


78  GREAT     MASTERS 

those  wonders.  In  these  Madonnas,  known  to  all  the  world, 
repeated,  copied,  imitated  in  succeeding  centuries,  the  young 
Raphael  builds  a  form  to  which  he  may  add,  but  upon  which 
only  in  one  immortal  achievement  can  he  improve.  Early  or 
late,  the  picture  embodies  an  ideal  of  Sculpture :  a  certain  pose 
contained  within  a  certain  shape — not  a  mere  outline,  but  a 
mass  of  which  we  see  one  contour  at  a  time.  And  in  his  paint- 
ing, as  we  said  above,  he  realised  again  a  sculpture  ideal,  of 
one  wishing  to  see  no  more  than  what  we  do,  no  more  to  either 
side,  or  above  or  below. 

It  seems  but  natural  that  the  great  Pope  Julius  should  then 
call  him  to  his  service  in  Rome.  Behind  the  poetry  of  the  call 
remains  the  prose  that  the  men  of  Florence  had  all  the  work 
that  could  be  done  there,  and  that  a  band  of  men  from  his 
native  Urbino  were  then  in  Rome  around  the  Pope  belonging 
to  that  great  house.  That  influence  always  remained  with 
him,  as  it  opposed  Michelangelo,  the  Florentine,  even  to 
the  end  of  JNIichelangelo's  troubles  with  the  great  tomb, 
whose  control  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Dukes  of  Urbino. 
But  Raphael,  as  usual,  gave  more  than  he  took.  The  support 
that  he  received  was  returned  a  hundredfold  by  the  prestige 
that  he  soon  threw  over  all  his  friends  and  admirers.  We  feel 
it  to-day ;  what  must  it  have  been  during  the  life  of  a  youth 
whose  gracious  manners  and  presence  made  him  welcome  to 


THE  "  L  A.  R  G  E  "  HOLY  FAMILY 

THE  LOUVRE,  PARIS 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRAUN,  CLEMENT  &  CO, 


RAPHAEL  79 

all  ?  The  sweetness  and  elevation  of  mind  which  made  him  a 
friend  of  the  distinguished  in  all  lines,  the  beauty  of  his  face, 
and  even  his  love  for  women,  have  added  to  the  attraction  of 
his  works  in  the  imagination  of  his  time,  as  in  that  of  the  pres- 
ent ;  and  his  early  death  enclosed  him  within  a  definition  of 
youth  and  splendour  that  has  made  him,  as  it  were,  the  repre- 
sentative of  his  own  art.  Under  the  benevolence  of  his  new 
patron,  his  art  developed  in  every  direction ;  he  begins  the 
great  wall  paintings  of  the  Vatican  which  are  the  full  bloom 
of  decorative  art ;  he  paints  portraits  which  remain  as  surely 
among  the  most  prodigious  representations  of  realistic  study. 
Even  in  the  few  painted  in  Florence  we  feel  the  uncompro- 
mising perception  of  the  individual.  Their  methods  may  be 
undeveloped,  but  are  faithful  to  the  essential  difference  of  the 
portrait  as  having  its  own  mode  of  life.  They  are  few  in 
number,  but  they  testify  to  a  prodigious  sincerity  and  a  power 
of  suggesting  some  intimate  life  behind  that  of  the  external 
one.  The  means  by  which  he  attains  this  are  as  mysterious  as 
the  causes  of  the  grace  and  nobility  of  his  great  show  pieces. 

Raphael  painted  the  mighty  Pope  whose  name  is  associated 
with  his  and  with  Michael's.  Once  in  the  portrait  I  give 
above  and  once,  if  possible  more  splendidly  because  more 
easily,  in  the  great  fresco  of  the  "  Mass  of  Bolsena."  In  the 
portrait  we  see  the  aged  man  burdened  by  a  life  of  affairs  :  we 


80  GREAT     MASTERS 

are  in  the  presence  of  an  energy  and  concentration  enclosed 
within  a  certain  dreaminess,  that  tell  us  what  the  man  may  be 
when  called  into  the  action  of  will  or  duty.  In  the  fresco 
there  is  but  one  impression  :  It  is  the  Pope.  The  face  has  the 
character  of  both  the  man  and  the  office. 

But  before  he  came  to  tliis  one  of  the  later  frescoes,  Raphael 
had  painted  in  the  other  chamber  the  much  more  famous  sub- 
jects which  are  known  by  the  ultra-conventional  names  of  the 
Dispute  and  the  School  of  Athens ;  late  names  such  as  are 
tacked  on  for  convenience,  but  which  often  throw  us  off  from 
the  real  intention,  which  perhaps  cannot  be  shut  up  in  a  single 
word. 

The  processes  of  description  are  tedious  and  useless,  except 
in  so  far  as  they  may  draw  one's  attention  to  some  general 
principles,  or  some  particular  points,  whose  statement  may 
bring  us  nearer  to  a  state  of  mind  in  harmony  with  the  thing 
we  look  at.  The  merest  print  or  photograph  is  more  useful. 
Still,  let  us  say  that  there  is  a  great  meaning  in  each  of  these 
pictures  ;  a  meaning  suggested  perhaps  to  Raphael  or  perhaps 
of  his  own  finding.  It  matters  not ;  for  the  meaning  in  art  has 
to  pass  through  the  lite  of  the  maker.  In  the  so-called  Dis- 
puta  we  see  the  dream  of  a  heaven  opened,  and  Christ  and 
God's  law  and  the  life  of  another  world  typified  by  grave  and 
solemn  beautiful  human  figures,  seated  far  up  beyond  the  clouds 


RAPHAEL  81 

in  a  great  dome  that  looks  like  the  heavens.  All  these  figures 
mean  something,  and  they  can  be  called  by  the  names  known 
to  Christian  faith,  JNIary,  John,  Adam,  and  Moses,  and  Paul, 
and  Peter,  and  others  nearer  to  us ;  and  they  have  by  them 
angels,  lovely  companions  floating  above  them,  in  beautiful 
clouds,  with  wings  and  clothing  to  tell  us  what  they  are.  But 
what  they  are  to  us  is,  that  they  are  beautiful,  and  solemn,  and 
majestic,  and  happy,  and  living  some  life  like  our  own,  but  full 
of  peace.  Below  on  earth,  solemn  and  splendid  but  anxious 
figures  feel  this  presence  and  ask  for  a  union  with  it.  Popes, 
bishops,  philosophers,  thinkers  of  all  kinds,  stand  or  move  with 
that  common  intention.  They  are  all  absorbed  in  the  all- 
powerful,  wished-for  truth.  Some  few,  or  a  great  many  per- 
ceive in  the  divine  mysteries  of  the  Church,  in  the  Eucharistic 
Offering  the  solution,  the  joining  of  earth  and  heaven.  All 
this  is  represented  as  a  vast  dream.  Thus  much  for  the  claims 
of  Religion.  The  claims  of  Pure  Thought,  of  the  pursuit  of 
Truth  in  Science,  are  typified  on  the  opposite  wall.  In  an 
earthly  palace,  one  of  the  finest  dreams  of  the  Renaissance, 
are  placed  here  and  there,  as  if  in  usual  customary  visit,  repre- 
sentatives of  what  the  age  called  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts: 
Archimedes,  Zoroaster,  Ptolemy,  Alcibiades,  Socrates,  Aspasia, 
Diogenes  move  about  in  the  gi-eat  light  hall,  through  whose 
corridors   advance   toward  us,  surrounded  and  welcomed  by 


82  GREAT     MASTERS 

illustrious  thinkers,  the  representatives  of  two  great  paths  of 
thought :  two  names  most  important  to  the  men  of  that  day, 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  A  wonderful  life  fills  all  these  figures, 
individually  perhaps  not  more  powerful  than  that  of  many  a 
weaker  work;  but  altogether,  as  even  the  little  photographs 
show,  the  flow  of  the  crowd  is  not  merely  owing  to  the  inge- 
nious subtlety  of  the  composition,  nor  to  the  beautiful  arrange- 
ment of  lines.  All  these  things  help ;  there  is  nothing  wasted  ; 
the  movements  and  gestures  are  increased  and  made  more 
correct,  apparently,  by  these  subtleties,  but  there  is  still  the 
imponderable  quality  that  makes  the  essential  of  a  dream. 
Nothing  is  dependent  on  real  exactness  of  attitude  or  of  draw- 
ing. Hence,  when  others  have  tried,  upon  supposed  lessons 
deduced  from  these  great  examples,  they  have  failed.  The 
formula  becomes  the  formula  of  the  theatre.  That  beautiful 
architecture  which  is  a  necessity  for  Raphael,  as  giving  the 
meaning  of  the  cloistered  serenity  of  thought,  becomes  with 
imitation  the  arrangement  of  the  wings  of  a  stage.  The  point 
would  lead  us  too  far,  and  yet  it  is  the  one  important  clue  to 
what  makes  the  so-called  monumental  or  historical  art  of  to-day 
vary  little  from  a  theatrical  setting;  a  thing  we  applaud,  because 
we  see  how  well  the  stage  has  been" set;  but  rarely  do  we  feel 
as  if  a  veil  had  been  lifted  and  we  beheld  a  scene,  existing 
apart  from  us  and  outside  of  the   present   moment.    But   it 


PORTRAIT    OF    1' O  1' E    JULIUS    I 

PITTI     PALACE,     FLORENCE 
[OTOGRAPH     BY      BR A UN,      CLEMENT     &     C 


RAPHAEL  83 

has  always  been  so,  unfortunately,  and  the  means  of  great 
artists,  either  in  form  or  sound,  have  been  looked  upon  as  laws 
or  as  the  aim  of  their  works.  While,  on  the  contrary,  each  real 
man,  whether  he  be  as  gi*eat  as  Raphael  or  small  as  one  of  the 
lesser  Dutch  painters,  has  made  his  own  laws  and  built  the 
structure  in  which  he  lives. 

This  was  not  all  the  work  that  Raphael  took  upon  himself. 
Besides  these  great  decorations  to  please  the  pride  of  place 
of  the  great  Pope,  and  to  appease  that  hunger  for  the  beauti- 
ful which  filled  the  Ruler's  mind  in  common  with  the  gi-eater 
spirits  of  Italy,  the  habit  of  Raphael  and  the  other  men  about 
him  was  to  take  all  that  came  along,  sometimes  beginning  to 
carry  out  some  piece  with  their  own  hand,  but  usually  accept- 
ing everything  as  mere  work,  for  which  some  one  head  was 
responsible.  That  had  been  the  way  before  them  ;  just  as  it 
might  be  in  building ;  and  they  did  not  move  out  of  the  habits 
of  their  craft.  The  amount  of  manual  labor  carried  out  by 
Raphael  himself,  that  we  know  of,  is  formidable.  What  he 
did  with  his  assistants  remains  as  the  largest  undertaking 
known  to  the  art  of  the  painter.  We  must  remember  that 
these  men  who  helped  him  were  not  only  pupils,  or  ordinary 
assistants,  but  men  of  distinguished  talents  famous  to  this 
day,  many  of  whom  he  had  known  before,  many  of  whom 
were  older  and  more  experienced  than  himself   But  the  habit 


84  GREAT     MASTERS 

of  the  day  was  to  do  work  in  common,  and  Raphael,  more 
than  any  other  leader  known,  exercised  the  same  power  of  har- 
monious combination  with  his  assistants  that  we  feel  in  his 
paintings.  To  those  who  see  these  great  pictures  in  the  build- 
ings, the  fact  of  many  hands  having  carried  them  out  is  but 
too  evident.  Traditionally,  some  \of  them  have  been  consum- 
mated from  mere  sketches  and  indications.  It  may  be  partly 
true,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  were  the  sketches 
and  indications  of  one  of  the  most  adjustable  minds  ever  known, 
and  that  the  point  of  view  of  that  day  was  the  moral  one — 
lost  by  us — that  the  result  was  everything  and  that  the  aim 
was  the  work  itself,  and  not  who  did  this  or  that  part.  It  is  to 
the  changes  of  the  past  century  that  we  owe  the  departure 
from  that  holy  and  only  true  ideal.  We  see  many  of  these 
great  frescoes  in  lesser  beauty  than  might  be  theirs,  if  their 
texture  could  possibly  have  been  that  of  Raphael's  own  hand. 
Once  or  twice  in  the  later  ones  this  is  traditionally  so,  and  in 
the  "  Mass  of  Bolsena  "  we  see  only  the  hand  of  Raphael,  and 
that  hand  moving  with  an  ease  and  certainty  that  seems  like 
a  prediction  of  the  great  executants  who  were  to  come.  That 
other  portrait  of  Pope  Juhus  kneeling  impassibly  at  the  altar 
where  the  miracle  occurs,  not  as  having  been  really  there,  but  as 
representing  the  faith  of  the  Church,  is  painted  with  the  appar- 
ent velocity   and   ease  which   we  credit  to   such  a  man  as 


.€ 


THE    MASS    OF    BOLSENA 

THE    VATICAN,    ROME 
PHOTOGRAPH    BY    BRAUN,    CLEMENT    & 


RAPHAEL  85 

Velasquez.  The  whole  picture  foreshadows  the  realism  of  a 
later  day,  while  it  connects  with  the  naive  representation  of 
the  previous  century.  One  feels  what  we  might  have  had  if  the 
choice  had  been  to  have  Kaphael  alone  put  his  hand-mark  on 
the  wall.  It  is  fitting  that  with  such  majestic  representation 
the  life  in  art  of  the  great  Pope  should  close.  After  him  came 
Leo,  less  great,  certainly  less  noble,  but  more  distinctly  fond 
of  the  pleasures  of  art.  That  charm  which  satisfied  the  sterner 
Pope  was  more  than  sufficient  to  make  the  self-indulgent 
Medicean  favour  Raphael  and  his  cohort  of  friends  and  depend- 
ants, just  as  the  independent  standing  of  Michelangelo  dis- 
pleased him,  though  Julius  had  found  it  in  the  key  of  his  own 
character.  Leo  then  displaces  Julius  in  the  gi'eat  frescoes 
where  he  symbolises  the  Papacy  present  in  his  person,  at  the 
events  more  or  less  historical,  which  the  brush  of  Raphael  or 
his  assistants  placed  upon  the  walls.  And  again  Raphael  paints 
the  portraits  of  the  new  Pope  with  that  same  perception  that  we 
recognise  in  the  portrait  of  Julius.  He  paints  with  great  care  and 
finish  on  the  canvas  as  he  paints  with  great  ease  and  synthesis 
on  the  wall,  and  we  see  the  character  of  another  important 
man,  the  character  of  the  intelligent,  self-indulgent  heir  of 
wealthy  bankers  and  rulers,  with  no  attempt  at  showing  a 
deeper  and  inner  life;  for  now  the  heroic  days  were  over. 
Raphael  had  passed  imperturbably  through  the  stress  of  the 


86  GREAT    MASTERS 

previous  days  of  war  and  crime  and  intellectual  and  religious 
tumult.  Still  more  beautifully  he  floated  with  the  new  current 
in  which  new  fortunes  asserted  themselves  in  the  public  eye. 
Great  moneyed  men  were  now  in  the  front,  and  in  a  day 
which  pre-eminently  recognised  achievement  in  every  direc- 
tion it  seemed  but  fitting  that  their  position  should  receive 
the  adornment  of  cultured  art.  Naturally,  again  the  name  of 
Raphael  becomes  associated  with  that  of  the  great  banker 
Chigi,  and,  for  him  and  for  others,  adorns  or  presides  over  the 
decorations  of  palaces.  What  we  to-day  call  the  Farnesina  is 
another  of  the  buildings  which  Raphael  marks  with  his  name. 
Most  of  what  we  see  is  not  his  own  handiwork.  No  mere  man 
could  have  carried  this  out  with  the  very  many  other  decora- 
tions and  special  paintings  he  had  undertaken.  So  that  these 
buildings  are  translated  into  the  language  of  his  assistants; 
even  then  they  seem  fine  dreams  of  that  classical  antiquity 
which  was  beginning  to  be  dug  out  from  the  ruins  of  Rome. 
One  of  the  many  sides  of  Raphael  was  a  passionate  love  for 
the  discovery  and  resuscitation  of  the  ancient  Rome,  carried 
so  far  as  to  make  him  hope  that  he  might  bring  back  the 
City  to  something  like  its  former  shape  and  splendour.  Partly 
from  this  love,  and  partly  because  he  was  asked  to  build  also, 
he  followed  with  devotion  the  unearthing  of  the  precious  ruins. 
To  his  eyes,  the  most  sensitive  of  all  eyes  to  just  that  form  of 


THE    WOMAN    WITH    THE    VE 

PITTI    PALACE,    FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BROGI 


RAPHAEL  87 

beauty,  many  works  of  the  past  appeared  for  the  first  time 
from  the  accumulated  earth  of  ages.  It  is  due  to  this  perhaps 
that  he  was  carried  off  by  an  attack  of  the  fever,  so  often 
arising  from  such  excavations.  Meanwhile,  however,  he  not 
only  placed  before  the  eyes  of  the  world  the  remains  of  clas- 
sical antiquity,  but  in  his  usual  way  he  gave  to  that  antiquity 
a  new  form,  so  much  more  adapted  to  our  comprehension 
that  we  still  see  the  antique  through  the  lovely  vision  by  which 
he  expressed  it.  It  became  with  him  a  means  of  expression. 
He  not  only  dressed  Greek  fable  and  story  in  his  own  shape, 
opening  to  the  common  mind  what  before  was  the  privilege  of 
a  few,  but  he  dressed  in  its  way  and  manners  the  ancient 
Bible  and  the  whole  Christian  story.  None  of  us  have  been 
freed  from  this  view  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  past  as  he 
made  it  out.  The  scenes  of  the  Old  Testament  and  those  of  the 
New  are  still  in  our  minds  tinged  with  the  classical  feeling — • 
semi-pagan — which  Raphael  chose  to  clothe  them  in. 

I  say  semi-pagan,  to  fall  in  a  little  with  conventional 
arrangements  of  thought.  The  necessary  weakness  of  our 
grasp  of  ideas  obliges  us  to  catalogue  and  divide  things  that 
really  melt  one  into  the  other.  Of  course  Paganism,  that  is  to 
say  the  habits  of  the  world  before  Christianity,  in  the  civilisa- 
tion of  Greece  and  Rome,  melted  into  and  affected  the  New 
Dispensation.  Even  the  forms  of  the  Church  are  indissolubly 


88  GREAT     MASTERS 

connected  with  those  of  a  Pagan  era ;  as  the  words  of  new 
thought  are  those  of  a  previous  one ;  as  the  forms  of  Greek 
art  were  used  at  once  for  Christian  Types.  On  this  firm  foun- 
dation is  based  the  naturalness  of  Raphael's  success. 

He  seems  to  have  moved  in  this  new  manner  as  if  almost 
for  the  first  time  he  had  freed  the  genius  of  himself  and  of  his 
race,  in  a  country  where  these  ancient  influences  had  per- 
sisted through  ages  of  obscure  feeling.  What  he  now  placed 
before  his  nation  must  have  appealed  to  the  deepest  fibres  of 
heredity.  Again  we  see  in  these  imitations  of  fresh-discov- 
ered beauty,  Raphael's  power  of  adornment  of  a  new  love. 
Most  of  the  antiques  which  he  uncovered  are  inferior  in  their 
own  spirit,  if  one  may  so  say,  to  that  spirit  which  he  dis- 
covered in  them.  The  ornamental  decorations  which  he  un- 
covered in  ancient  ruins  are  only  in  a  very  few  exceptional 
cases  as  rich,  and  largely  understood,  as  the  imitations  which 
he  or  even  his  disciples  made  out  from  the  original.  It 
has  happened  with  him  as  has  happened  with  Virgil.  We 
have  seen  so  much  of  them,  or  of  imitations  of  them, 
that  they  occasionally  appeared  conventional  because 
we  do  not  realise  that  there  was  once  a  time  when 
there  was  nothing  behind  them.  As  tlie  words  of  Virgil 
become  mere  commonplace  quotations,  so  the  gestures 
and  arrangements   of  Raphael  have  grown   to  be  the  com- 


THE  ^  I  S  I  O  N  O  F  E  Z  E  K  I  E  L 

THE  PITTI  PALACE,  FLORENCE 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BROGI 


RAPHAEL  89 

monplace  of  expression.  It  is  so  with  all  things  that  are 
to  pass  into  the  public  domain.  All  the  more  must  we  feel 
the  extraordinary  place  which  they  hold  in  the  making  of  civi- 
lisation. In  only  one  direction  do  we  feel  that  the  harmo- 
nious charm  of  Raphael  could  not  absorb  the  important  beauty 
that  he  admired.  The  Sibyls,  which  he  painted  under  the 
blow  of  Michelangelo's  great  figures,  have  no  kin  with  them. 
They  are  graceful  and  beautiful,  but  they  have  not  that  story 
to  tell  which  defines  the  movements  and  the  build  of  the 
prophetic  beings  created  by  the  Master  of  the  Sistine  Chapel. 
Raphael's  prophecy  was  another  one.  There  are  limits  to 
the  powers  of  genius.  The  shape  which  it  takes  has  its  own 
laws.  And  yet  when  reinformed  by  the  admiration  of  the 
antique,  Raphael's  genius  is  apt  to  give  us  such  a  dream  as 
that  of  "The  Vision  of  Ezekiel,"  which  in  its  smallest  of 
sizes  seems  as  important  as  might  have  been  the  colossal 
statues  of  Jove  himself  At  this  moment,  perhaps,  he  may 
have  painted  in  another  mood  the  Sistine  Madonna,  another 
vision,  in  which  for  the  last  time,  perhaps,  he  glorified  that 
Mother  and  Child  who  had  his  very  earliest  love  and  pre- 
occupation. The  days  of  his  personal  work  re  drawing  to  a 
close.  After  1517,  his  personal  sharing  in  the  work  done  is 
small.  None  the  less,  the  amount  of  work  which  he  directed 
or  prepared  or  retouched  continued  increasing.  In  1519,  the 


90  GREAT    MASTERS 

paintings  of  Chigi  and  of  the  Vatican  were  not  yet  finished. 
Daily,  however,  he  was  asked  to  undertake  new  work,  to 
draw  cartoons  for  frescoes,  or  designs  for  ornaments,  or  for 
dies  for  coinage.  Foreign  princes  asked  their  ambassadors  for 
pictures  from  him.  The  Envoys  found  the  Master  unable  to 
satisfy  them,  though  he  accepted,  and  pretended  to  believe 
that  he  might  carry  out,  the  orders.  He  lived  in  state,  sur- 
rounded by  pupils  and  assistants,  entertaining  them,  or  friends, 
and  beginning  to  feel  for  the  first  time  the  pressure  of  his 
gigantic  work.  He  was  giving  designs  for  architecture  in 
which  the  serenity  of  his  paintings  is  visible.  He  attended  to 
the  excavation  of  ancient  Rome.  He  accepted  the  position  of 
Architect  of  the  new  St.  Peter's,  obtaining,  with  his  usual 
good  fortune,  the  help  of  a  learned  assistant  who  could  be  at 
the  same  time  his  teacher,  the  celebrated  Dominican  Fra 
Giocondo  of  Verona,  and  was  having  translated  for  him  Vi- 
truvius,  in  whose  pages  the  men  of  that  day  hoped  to  find  the 
secret  of  all  ancient  architectural  art.  This  he  explains  in  one 
of  his  few  letters  to  his  uncle,  the  brother  of  his  mother,  at 
home  in  Urbino.  He  tells  how  he  was  staying  at  Rome,  "  as 
he  shall  never  be  able  to  stay  anywhere  else  again,  out  of  love 
of  the  building  of  St.  Peter's.  For  what  spot  on  earth  is  more 
dignified  than  Rome  ?  What  enterprise  is  more  dignified  than 
St.  Peter's — the  first  temple  of  the  world  and  the  greatest 


DETAIL    FROM    THE    SISTINE    MADONNA 

ROYAL    GALLERY,    DRESDEN 
PHOTOGRAPH    BY    BR A  UN,    CLEMENT    &    CO. 


RAPHAEL  91 

piece  of  building  that  has  ever  been  seen  ? "  He  tells  his  uncle 
how  well  satisfied  he  is,  "  how  he  holds  property  in  Rome,  and 
an  income,  and  a  salary  from  St.  Peter's  never  to  fail  so  long 
as  he  lives,  and  that  he  has  more  work  for  very  large  sums; 
and  finally  that  Cardinal  Bibbiena,  his  friend  and  patron, 
wishes  him  to  marry  a  niece,  and  that  he  is  engaged  to  her, 
and  therefore  that  he  is  doing  credit  to  his  family,  and  to  the 
lords  of  his  native  Urbino,  to  whom  he  sends  homage. "  This 
position  of  security  and  of  continual  work  is  his,  according  to 
the  letter  dated  1514.  He  had  six  more  years  to  live.  Some 
of  the  work  that  we  have  recalled,  and  some  of  the  paintings 
by  which  we  know  him  best,  are  painted  in  this  last  inter- 
val of  continued  stress  of  production  or  superintendence. 
Perhaps  the  very  last  work  shows,  not  fatigue,  but  that  strange 
settling  down  into  a  given  form  which  indicates  for  an  artist 
the  closing  of  a  period.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  imagine  what 
might  have  been  the  next  great  opening  into  some  new  field 
of  perception.  However  noble  some  of  the  later  work,  a  cer- 
tain heaviness  indicates  perhaps  the  moment  when  the  young 
man  has  definitely  passed  into  a  turn  of  mind  that  belongs  to 
middle  age.  At  least  I  who  write  feel  that  something  has 
changed  him  when  he  paints  with  his  own  hand,  leaving  it 
somewhat  unfinished,  the  last  great  picture  of  "  The  Trans- 
figuration." There   is  no  loss  of  power.  Indeed,  the  sense  of 


92  GREAT     MASTERS 

mastery  is  as  great  as  that  expressed  in  his  most  energetic 
works.  It  is  only  perhaps  that  the  suggestion  of  attainment 
seems  to  close  the  vista  of  a  future.  That  future  was  to  be 
closed  for  ever  for  this  world  on  Good  Friday  of  that  year 
(1520),  and  his  body  lay  in  state  before  the  unfinished  picture. 
The  cord  had  been  stretched  too  far  and  snapped.  The  longest 
life  of  any  artist  had  not  produced  as  much  as  this  short  career 
of  thirty-seven  years,  a  course  accomplished  without  failure 
and  in  so  far  happier,  perhaps,  than  a  longer  one  with  a  possi- 
ble decline.  All  the  more  bright  seems  this  young  rounded 
life.  All  the  more  do  we  think  of  a  Raphael  perpetually 
young.  Italy  felt  his  death  ;  with  him  had  departed  the 
serenity  and  sweetness  of  the  classical  revival.  His  is  the  typ- 
ical representation  of  a  fortunate  life  of  the  artist.  To  us  it 
seems  as  if  he  was  the  child  of  good  fortune.  We  have  seen 
how  innocently  he  expressed  his  own  recognition  of  success, 
how  little  stress  he  laid  upon  his  glory  and  his  importance. 
One  might  believe  that  he  had  no  moments  of  doubt  or  of 
bitterness,  and  yet  on  the  margin  of  one  of  his  drawings 
remain  the  verses — a  record  of  what  happened  within  him: 

"  Now  this  I  well  believe  that  any  trifling  thing 
Offends  thee  so  that  it  devours  thy  heart. 
Great  mayst  thou  be,  but  not  in  power  of  will. 
Thou  seest  thy  real  value,  but  dost  not  believe. 


PORTRAIT    OF    BALD  ASS A RE    CASTIGLIONE 

THE  LOUVRE,  PARIS 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  B  R  A  U  N ,  CLEMENT  &  CO. 


RAPHAEL  93 

All  jealousies  of  thee  are  now  long  past. 

Be  thou  of  stone,  and  feel  no  further  grief."  * 

Within  the  mystery  of  the  soul  we  therefore  only  see  a  little 
distance ;  nor  can  I,  in  this  attempt  at  describing  one  of  the 
most  glorious  and  successful  of  lives,  do  more  than  record 
outside  appearances. 

*  This  drawing  is  owned  by  ray  friend  Mr.  Henry  Adams,  of  Washington.  The  drawing 
itself  is  a  mere  suggestion  and  the  large  handwriting  covers  the  page. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 

BUCKINGHAM    PALACE,    LONDON 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     B  K  A  U  N ,      CLEMENT     &      CO. 


REMBRANDT 


"When  I  desire  to  rest  my  mind,  I  do  not  seek  honours,  but  liberty." 

WORDS   ATTRIBUTED   TO    REMBRANDT. 


i 


REMBRANDT 


We  have  seen  the  divine  Raphael  pass  through  Hfe  as  if  on 
wings,  serenely  beautiful,  untouched  by  the  great  sorrows  of 
the  world,  helped  all  along  by  kindness  and  applause  ;  we 
shall  see  Rubens  also  successful  to  the  outer  world  and  to 
himself,  healthy  in  mind  and  body,  balanced  and  reasonable, 
and  yet  exuberant  in  the  joy  of  life.  So  we  have  seen  Michel- 
angelo an  example  of  life  full  of  sadness  within  a  glory  that 
accompanied  him  from  youth  to  extreme  old  age.  With  him 
another  of  the  great  artists,  Rembrandt — the  only  one  to  be 
placed  next  him  perhaps — has  some  connection  of  deep  feeling, 
of  an  interior  life,  revealed  only  by  his  work,  of  an  extraor- 
dinary aptitude  and  application  as  a  workman  and  of  struggle 
against  adverse  fates.  But  while  Michelangelo  began  and  ended 
his  long  life  in  full  recognition  of  his  pre-eminence,  leaving 
name  and  fortune  to  a  family,  Rembrandt,  beginning  in  fair 
repute,  continuing  in  deserved  reputation,  ends  obscurely, 
less  and  less  appreciated,  misunderstood,  disappearing  in  a 
shadow  like  that  which  envelops  the  mystery  of  his  paintings. 
This  darkness  closes  upon  him  and  his  story,  so  as  to  make  him 


98  GREAT     MASTERS 

a  subject  of  confused  anecdotes,  of  misapprehended  state- 
ments. And  indeed  even  during  the  success  of  his  hfe  the 
man  himself  is  hidden.  Of  what  he  really  was  we  can  know  but 
little  except  through  his  paintings,  his  etchings,  his  drawings. 
His  extreme  absorption  in  work,  which  during  his  good  days 
was  a  happiness  and  during  his  bad  days  a  relief,  separated  him 
as  a  great  worker,  little  known  to  the  men  of  his  day,  in  such 
a  way  at  least  as  we  might  have  fairly  expected.  Now,  at 
length,  we  know  all  the  ordinary  facts  of  his  life,  the  legends 
have  melted  away,  and  we  can  follow  year  by  year  the  quiet 
accomplishment  of  his  enormous  tasks.  Whatever  of  make- 
believe  romance  has  faded,  the  real  Rembrandt  is  still  a  poetic 
character  from  the  very  simplicity  of  his  life,  and  the  feeling 
we  have  of  an  interior  one  that  fills  his  work  and  is  only  known 
thereby.  His  fame  has  increased  year  by  year  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  represents  in  the  story  of  the  world  a  great  part  of  the 
value  of  that  native  land  which  did  not  understand  him.  No 
one  has  been  to  Holland  but  has  felt  the  importance  of  his 
name,  and  his  memory  pervades  the  cities  in  which  he  some- 
what obscurely  worked. 

Rembrandt  was  born  at  Leyden,  by  a  branch  of  the  Rhine, 
whose  name  his  father  had  taken,  and  from  which  he  gets  his 
full  name  of  Rembrandt  van  Rijn.  His  father's  name  was 
Harmen.  Hence  his  other  name  of  Harmensz,  that  is  to  say 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST'S    BROTHER 

BERLIN    MUSEUM 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BR A UN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


R  E  ]M  B  R  A  N  D  T  99 

Rembrandt  the  son  of  Harmen  of  the  Rhine.  This  was  in 
1606.  He  was  one  of  six  children  in  a  family  of  burghers  of 
moderate  wealth  and  the  owners  of  a  mill,  which  has  played 
some  part  in  the  legends  of  Rembrandt's  youth.  It  used  to  be 
said,  and  there  may  be  something  in  it,  that  his  pleasure  in 
light  and  shadow,  by  which  we  know  him  most,  began  with 
his  watching  the  sunlight  fall  into  the  gloom  of  the  old  mill. 

He  was  enrolled  as  a  boy  among  the  students  of  Latin  liter- 
ature at  the  then  illustrious  University ;  probably  for  some  ac- 
quirement of  learning,  certainly  for  exemptions  of  taxation 
that  belonged  to  the  members.  The  professors  are  still  famous 
to  this  day  for  law,  literature,  and  theology.  Among  them  are 
Scaliger,  Lipsius,  Vossius,  and  that  Arminius  whose  name 
remains  for  us  in  the  story  of  the  Calvinistic  struggle.  The 
printing  presses  of  Leyden  were  celebrated  and  their  fame  re- 
mains. Leyden  was  therefore  a  city  of  intellectual  and  liberal 
culture.  And  it  had  also  some  masterpieces  of  earlier  art. 
When  the  boy  began  to  show  in  the  usual  way  his  predilec- 
tion for  art,  and  was  wisely  allowed  by  the  family  to  begin  its 
study  at  fifteen,  he  found  a  teacher  in  an  artist  of  standing 
there,  now  almost  forgotten.  Van  Swanenburch.  We  are  told 
that  under  this  gentlemanly  painter,  the  boy  so  distinguished 
himself  during  his  three  years  of  apprenticeship,  that  his  fellow- 
citizens  were  interested  in  him,  that  his  parents  agreed  that  he 


100  GREAT    MASTERS 

should  go  to  a  more  important  artistic  centre,  and  that  he  was 
sent  to  Amsterdam,  to  study  under  Peter  Eastman.  Eastman's 
name  or  talent  was  not  one  from  which  to  imagine  the  future 
Rembrandt  to  develop.  He  was  an  "  Italianiser."  So  the  men 
were  called,  who  having  studied  in  Italy  brought  back,  as  we 
do  to-day  from  Paris,  certain  academic  tendencies  and  imita- 
tions. Always  in  the  beginnings  of  national  work  the  preju- 
dice is  in  favour  of  some  art  already  made,  which  can  be 
copied.  Though  Rembrandt  returned  to  Eeyden  after  a  few 
months'  study,  he  retained  for  some  time,  and  perhaps  through 
his  entire  life,  certain  smaller  likings,  derived  from  this  influ- 
ence. He  also  absorbed  the  tendencies  of  the  men  about  him  ; 
certainly  the  Dutch  fidelity  to  nature,  the  observation  of  light 
and  shade  as  a  manner  of  enforcing  this,  and  most  certainly 
that  excellent  workmanship  which  seems  to  us  outsiders  an 
integral  part  of  the  Dutch  character.  Painting  as  a  profession, 
as  a  trade,  was  possessed  in  perfection  by  the  Dutch  painters. 
They  may  be  bold,  or  they  may  be  timid,  they  may-have  noth- 
ing to  say,  or  a  great  deal,  but  their  mechanical  work  is  a  de- 
light to  the  painter,  and  a  lesson  as  to  the  importance  of  know- 
ing one's  trade.  Therefore  young  Rembrandt  had  not  to 
struggle  against  the  difficulties  of  unlearning  methods  of  me- 
chanical work,  and  is  not  separated  by  his  execution,  even  when 
most  consummate,  from  the  admirable  scholastic  qualities  of 


REMBRANDT  101 

the  other  men  whom  he  overtopped  by  the  simple  fact  that 
he  was  Rembrandt.  Already  by  1627  the  "St.  Paul  in  Prison," 
which  is  the  work  of  a  youth,  dry  and  harsh,  shows  that  some- 
thing more  which  he  was  to  express,  and  which  to  express  fully 
he  needed  a  more  accomplished  and  more  skilful  technique. 
This  power  developed  rapidly.  The  St.  Paul  has  already  the 
type  of  what  Rembrandt  is  about  to  give  us — the  look  of  a 
portrait  of  a  man  actually  known  to  the  painter,  represented 
with  those  incidents  of  ordinary  life  meant  to  convince  us  still 
more  of  the  thing  having  really  happened,  of  history  being  al- 
ways the  same ;  even  if,  as  often  with  him  and  other  Dutch- 
men, told  in  bad  taste,  and  perhaps  with  some  conventionality 
acquired  from  Italy,  or  necessary  to  satisfy  the  habit  of  mind 
of  the  client.  Thus  the  sword  of  St.  Paul,  in  the  painting, 
which  is  a  mere  symbol  in  the  church  pictures,  like  the  keys  of 
St.  Peter.  But  the  look  of  St.  Paul,  its  anxiety  combined  with 
thought,  is  that  of  a  prisoner  with  a  great  story  to  tell.  By 
1628  we  know  that  Rembrandt  practised  etching.  He  was 
learning  to  abbreviate  details  and  to  make  complete  studies 
outside  of  that  element  of  colour,  which  he  was  also  studying,  in 
his  paintings  though  with  relatively  less  success.  The  first  one 
we  know  of  is  that  of  his  mother,  whose  portrait  reappears, 
either  painted  or  etched,  for  many  years.  He  etches  and  draws 
and  paints  from  himself,  so  that  we  follow  his  portraits  through 


102  GREAT    MASTERS 

his  entire  life.  As  many  as  fifty,  I  believe,  remain  to  us.  No 
more  simple  way  of  studying  nature  could  be  followed  by  a 
man  desirous  to  understand  the  mechanism  of  expression,  the 
singular  changes  the  human  face  can  take,  and  the  strange 
meanings  given  to  it  by  light  or  shade,  as  this  or  that  point  of 
character  flashes  out,  or  is  hidden,  and  trifles  become  of  im- 
portance to  tell  the  story  of  character.  We  see  the  young  Rem- 
brandt, jolly  and  healthy,  almost  a  boy  ;  then  thoughtful  and 
reserved,  or  exuberant  with  success  ;  then  in  full  possession 
of  himself,  understanding  what  he  is,  then  gi-ave,  feeling  the 
weight  of  things  ;  then  saddened  by  misfortune,  or  smiling 
gently  at  keeping  himself  and  his  powers  beyond  the  reach  of 
fortune,  or  finally  aged  and  broken,  the  mind  and  intellectual 
control  contemplating  the  weary  body.  In  these  studies  one 
follows  also  the  peculiar  turn  of  mind  which  separates  him 
from  most  artists,  the  anxiety  to  go  still  farther  in  pursuit  of 
every  quality  of  workmanship  or  every  manner  of  expression. 
He  remains  pleased,  perhaps  sometimes  triumphant,  but  not 
satisfied.  Before  him  open  still  greater  possibilities  of  more 
comprehensive  achievement,  either  greater  force  or  greater 
sweetness,  or  greater  synthesis. 

He  seems  to  have  been  rapidly  appreciated,  to  have  been 
fairly  paid,  and  so  to  have  been  taken  to  the  greater  centre  of 
Amsterdam  as  early  as  1631.   We  know  where  he  lived  in 


P  O  R  T  R  A  I  T    ()  F    ri  A  S  K  I  A    (PENCIL    DRAWING) 

BERLIN    PRINT    ROOM 


REMBRANDT  103 

Amsterdam,  and  the  house  he  purchased  later,  where  much  of 
his  great  work  was  done,  and  the  httle  house  at  the  end  of  the 
Canal  of  the  Roses  where  he  passed  his  last  days  of  hard  work 
and  relative  poverty.  At  first  all  went  well  with  him.  He 
married  a  girl  of  fortune,  of  good  family,  Saskia  van  Uylen- 
burgh.  He  drew  from  her  and  he  painted  her  many  times.  He 
may  have  painted  her  before  his  marriage ;  we  have  a  sketch 
three  days  afterward,  as  he  has  written  on  the  margin.  And 
he  loved  to  place  her  in  many  attitudes  and  in  costumes  more 
or  less  fantastic,  as  he  had  done  and  kept  doing  for  himself. 
Never  are  these  pictures  sad  or  troubled.  They  represent  a 
pleasant  mind,  perhaps  a  gay  one,  painted  by  a  great  mind, 
in  youth  and  happiness,  and  the  painter  seems  to  have  been 
happy.  We  see  this  in  his  portraits  of  himself  and  his  friends. 
He  paints  and  engraves  and  etches  for  many  patrons  and  pur- 
chasers. All  this  work  is  successful,  sometimes  extraordinary 
in  qualities  of  execution  and  vision  of  reality.  But  as  yet  that 
special  mark  which  is  to  distinguish  him  later,  that  of  a  deep 
penetration  of  his  subject,  has  not  appeared.  Nothing  inter- 
rupts his  constant  production.  At  some  moment,  perhaps  with 
the  loss  of  the  sunshine  of  Saskia,  who  dies  quite  young 
(1642),  the  expression  of  his  work  becomes  more  intense,  but 
no  personal  distress,  loss  of  loved  ones,  loss  of  friends,  of  money 
and  reputation,  appears  to  place  any  hinderance  in  the  continual 


104  GREAT    MASTERS 

flow  of  his  work.  His  sincerity  of  mind  and  love  of  nature  show 
through  all  the  earlier  work  ;  the  portraits  are  splendid  or  accu- 
rate and  the  sensation  of  what  he  sees  is  each  time  fairly  and 
independently  represented  ;  his  mind  sees  farther  and  farther 
the  make  and  quality  of  what  he  looks  at.  The  singular  per- 
ception of  the  mind  of  the  subject  of  his  portrait,  or  imagined 
figure,  belongs  to  a  later  period.  The  beggars  whom  he  likes 
to  draw,  the  Jews  who  serv^ed  to  him  as  models,  are  at  first 
merely  shown  from  outside.  Little  by  little  we  feel  in  the  rep- 
resentation of  poverty  and  of  pain  a  growing  sympathy,  which 
is  to  be  the  mark  of  the  greater  Rembrandt.  His  sketches  and 
etchings,  as  well  as  his  painting,  describe  home  fife,  his  own  or 
that  of  others,  in  all  the  details  of  domesticity,  with  more  and 
more  sympathy,  as  if  he  sought  for  the  very  type  of  the  study 
of  the  home.  The  Mother  and  the  Child  pass  more  and  more 
into  a  typical  representation.  Family  affections  are  embodied 
more  and  more  distinctly  in  the  pictures  or  the  etchings.  He  is 
slowly  passing  into  the  power  of  representing  the  ideal  of  the 
Scriptures  as  existing  in  ordinary  life.  Perhaps  the  steadiness  of 
home  allows  him  to  see  more  distinctly  the  meaning  and  value 
of  unheroic  life,  of  the  life  of  any  one,  rich  or  poor ;  of  ordinary 
happiness  or  misfortune.  His  relations  with  the  Jews  ;  the  de- 
graded, the  poor,  the  wealthy,  and  the  intellectual,  connect 
with  his  wish  to  use  the  Bible  as  the  subject  for  these  intui- 


REMBRANDT  105 

tions ;  and  the  sense  of  pity  for  man  becomes  more  apparent. 
The  fashion  of  his  day  allowed  for  such  representations.  No 
longer  the  great  church  paintings,  meant  to  teach  doctrine  or 
to  adorn  a  splendid  worship,  could  be  used  as  the  method  of 
expression  of  a  painter's  feelings.  In  Holland,  influenced  by 
the  Reformation,  all,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  had 
dropped  the  ancient  forms.  But  the  Bible  remained  as  a  hu- 
man inspiration,  and  allusion  to  its  study  was  easily  understood. 
Upon  these  themes  Rembrandt  worked,  bringing  the  events  of 
a  far  back  epoch  into  dreams  of  ordinary  life.  All  his  study  of 
the  ordinary  sights  of  life,  all  his  fondness  for  realistic  copying 
helped  now  to  give  a  true  form  to  what  he  pictured,  and  to  him- 
self and  to  us  the  effect  of  a  thing  actually  seen  ;  of  a  picture  not 
composed,  but  revealed  at  one  blow,  as  if  before  the  artist  a  cur- 
tain had  risen  and  fallen.  Whatever  of  convention  he  used,  he 
tried  to  bring  back  to  a  knowledge  of  the  Orient  with  which  he 
was  well  acquainted,  as  we  know  from  his  drawings  made  for 
himself.  The  costumes  of  the  Jews  whom  he  saw  about  him  he 
modified  by  that  acquired  information.  To  us  to-day  with  a 
greater  knowledge  of  the  East  as  it  is,  these  details  are  some- 
times in  the  way.  At  his  day  they  may  have  served  the  same 
purpose  as  our  accuracies  of  the  present  or  the  accuracies  of 
various  epochs,  which  are  always  transient. 

We  have  said  that  we  know  of  his  uneventful  life  nothing 


106  GREAT    MASTERS 

but  the  actual  documentary  facts  that  belong  to  every  one — 
who  his  parents  were  ;  that  he  studied  ;  that  he  painted  ;  that 
he  married  ;  that  he  had  a  child ;  that  his  wife  died  ;  that  he 
was  successful  and  had  pupils,  and  was  apparently  in  an 
assured  position  as  an  artist ;  that  he  collected  works  of  art 
which  he  studied  assiduously— that  he  accumulated  also  those 
masses  of  rubbish  upon  which  painters  depend  for  details  and 
for  encouragement  of  their  behef  in  the  reality  of  what  they 
do — and  we  have,  by  great  luck,  of  all  these  a  full  catalogue, 
because  they  were  sold  by  his  creditors.  We  know  that  all  this 
collection,  worth  great  sums  before  and  after  that  day,  went 
for  nothing,  along  with  his  paintings  and  his  drawings,  and  the 
very  linen  put  out  to  wash  ;  that  the  great  war  in  which  Hol- 
land was  entangled  had  ruined  him,  with  many  others,  by  low- 
ering all  values  suddenly,  and  stopping  the  purchase  of  such 
luxuries  as  paintings  ;  that  he  withdrew  from  his  house,  sold 
over  his  head,  to  small  quarters  and  poor  lodgings  ;  that  his 
son,  now  growing,  up  and  a  trusted  servant  protected  him  in 
adversity  by  some  legal  arrangement  through  which  they  em- 
ployed him ;  that  he  became  less  known,  through  daily  produc- 
ing work  which  grew  more  and  more  important  and  reached 
the  highest  grade  of  technical  power  known  to  the  art  of  paint- 
ing ;  that  his  son  died  ;  that  he  married  again,  and  died  ob- 
scurely in  that  house  on  the  Canal  of  the  Roses.  All  this  is  an 


PORTRAIT    OF    AN    OLD    WOMAN 

THE    HERMITAGE,    ST.    PETERSBURG 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRAUN,     CLEMENT     &     CO 


REMBRANDT  107 

ordinary  story,  such  as  has  always  happened,  and  is  only  of 
value  because  it  happened  to  him,  and  that  we  hope  to  know 
him  better  by  these  small  details ;  that  is  to  say,  that  we  may 
perhaps  follow  his  course  of  development  by  the  marks  of  ex- 
terior accidents  ;  but  there  is  no  clew  that  way  to  the  constant 
progress  and  affirmation  of  power  which  follows  him  to  the  end. 
Misfortune  or  poverty  seem  to  give  still  greater  strength  to  his 
faculties  and  to  his  absorption  in  his  profession.  Only  one  thing 
can  be  traced,  that  the  lessons  of  life  enrich  his  mind  and  are 
part  of  his  work.  More  and  more  does  his  sympathy  go  out  to 
the  feelings  of  others.  More  and  more  the  tenderness  of  the 
Bible  story — the  human  side  of  it,  its  perpetual  lessons — are 
embodied  in  every  drama  that  he  paints  or  draws,  in  the  very 
portraits  that  he  paints.  The  men  and  women,  whoever  they 
may  be,  the  artisan,  the  theologian,  the  nobleman,  the  profes- 
sional man,  the  plain  people  or  the  wealthy — are  looked  at  each 
as  having  a  history  behind  them.  Something  of  an  individual 
soul  unlike  any  other  individual  spirit,  with  special  experiences, 
shines  within  his  portraits  or  imagined  faces  in  a  way  that  no 
one  before  or  after  him  has  attained,  or  even  perhaps  has 
dreamed  of  attaining.  Each  and  all  of  these  portraits  are,  as  it 
were,  historic.  They  are  important  even  if  we  have  no  idea  of 
what  they  represent  ;  and  indeed  it  is  in  those  cases  that  this 
individuality  of  previous  existence  appeals  to  us  most  strongly. 


108  GREAT    MASTERS 

They  are  the  nearest  approach  ever  made  to  actual  being,  and 
perhaps  exist  more  powerfully  in  the  pictures  than  our  unper- 
ceptive  eyes  could  make  out  had  we  the  real  men  and  women 
before  us.  Before  his  great  portraits  the  refined  crowd  gazing 
upon  them  in  the  galleries  seems  tamer  and  less  valuable. 
They  are  the  common  people ;  and  Rembrandt's  paintings  of 
any  ordinary  acquaintance  are  the  elect  and  the  wonderful. 
Within  what  Antiquity  called  the  perso7i — that  is  to  say  the 
part  we  play  in  life — appears  the  enormous  value  of  the  human 
soul.  Something  like  this  we  feel  before  all  great  portraits, 
even  when  not  painted  with  the  multitude  of  details  or  the 
easy  synthesis  of  Rembrandt.  Something  like  this  we  feel  in 
Raphael's  portraits,  even  if  they  belong  to  methods  of  painting 
early  and  tentative.  Something  like  this  with  Velasquez,  but 
reversely  from  Rembrandt.  He  goes  no  farther  than  what  is 
sufficient  to  express  a  character  and  to  express  a  position  in 
life,  seeing  what  a  gentleman  may  see  without  pretending  to 
judge  or  fathom.  Of  course,  in  the  continuous  work  of  Rem- 
brandt as  a  mere  workman  following  his  trade  of  painting  to 
live  by  it,  there  are  pieces  which  are  necessarily  the  task  of  the 
day  carried  out  beautifully,  but  wherein  the  mind  of  the  work- 
man was  tired.  Even  then  these  are  masterpieces  of  some  side 
of  the  painter's  art.  Nor  would  it  have  been  within  the  habit 
of  his  nation  to  throw  away  a  work  always  honestly  made  a.s 


REMBRANDT  109 

work ;  and  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to-day  to  notice  that 
these  very  great  artists  are  primarily  workmen,  without  any 
pose  or  assumption  of  doing  more  than  a  daily  task.  They 
seem  almost  devoid  of  ambition.  Their  work  is  sufficient  for 
them.  The  great  applause  of  a  contest  with  others  appears  alien 
to  the  integrity  of  the  mind  looking  only  at  its  own  existence. 
I  have  spoken  of  the  portraits,  not  only  because  they  are  famous 
and  wonderful  and  well  known,  and  we  can  appreciate  them 
according  to  the  gradations  of  our  perceptions,  but  because 
that  study  of  the  actual  fact  seen,  that  we  call  realism,  is  the 
foundation  upon  which  Rembrandt  stood,  when  he  invented 
the  probable  appearance  of  things  he  had  not  seen,  but  which 
his  mind  wished  to  appear  before  him  ;  and  it  is  from  this  basis 
of  enormous  observation  that  he  passes  to  the  expression  of 
feeling  in  his  imaginary  paintings  or  etchings.  "  Christ  Healing 
the  Sick,"  the  famous  etching  known  as  the  Hundred  Guilder 
Print,  tells  the  story  in  the  nearest  approach  ever  made  to  a 
realisation  of  its  importance.  A  description  of  it  might  make  it 
appear  too  much  to  be  the  accumulation  of  facts.  Others  than 
Rembrandt  might  have  thought  of  similar  necessary  details, 
but  who  could  have  brought  them  together,  so  that  one  is  in- 
separable from  the  other  ?  All  the  resources  of  what  we  call  art 
— that  is  to  say  the  arrangement  of  lines  and  spaces,  the  divis- 
ions of  light  and  shade,  the  insisting  on  certain  points  and  the 


110  GREAT    MASTERS 

elision  of  others  are  there,  but  so  covered  up  that  all  seems 
accidental.  But  the  real  picture  as  it  happened  in  its  day  would 
have  been  more  accidental  and  its  meaning  less  visible.  Who 
can  forget  the  expression  of  the  Christ,  the  manner  in  which  He 
welcomes  with  blessing  the  embarrassed  mother  bringing  up 
her  unconscious  child,  at  the  same  time  that  He  is  aware  of 
the  objection  and  interference  of  the  disciples  unwilling  to 
have  Him  troubled  ?  His  extended  hand  welcomes  the  misery 
addressing  him,  and  gently  with  the  same  movement  puts  aside 
the  too  great  officiousness  of  Peter.  All  around  Him  are 
grouped  the  supplicants,  the  paralytic  faintly  stretching  out  a 
helpless  hand ;  a  daughter  in  expectant  prayer ;  the  leper  in 
agony  of  hope,  the  disabled  patient  cripple;  the  impotent, 
Wind  old  man  led  by  his  aged  wife ;  the  friends  and  relatives 
timidly  recommending  their  charges — the  gay  child  in  perfect 
health,  looking  at  it  all  as  a  piece  of  play;  and  on  the  other 
side,  in  the  full  light  of  reason,  the  wise  men  and  the  Pharisees, 
watching  with  some  curiosity  and  some  interest  this  singular 
performance,  while  the  apostles  gaze  steadily  in  full  belief,  one 
of  them  half  turning  to  argue,  as  if  accustomed  to  such  remon- 
strance; while  the  elegant  young  man  of  fine  sensibility  looks 
on  with  sympathy,  yet  annoyed  at  the  coarseness  and  ill-flavour 
of  the  miserable  crowd.  In  this  etching  we  see  the  most  splen- 
did use  of  that  great  engine  of  representation  and  expression  in 


D   ^ 


REMBRANDT  111 

art,  of  which  Rembrandt  is  the  great  exponent,  which  he  has 
made  so  completely  his  that  we  know  him  mostly  through  it. 
It  is  what  the  language  of  the  studios  calls  "  Chiaroscuro  " — 
that  is  to  say,  if  we  can  define  so  complex  a  thing,  the  manner 
in  which  what  we  see  merges  from  shade  into  light  or  retreats 
within  the  shadows.  It  has  always  been  felt  by  painters  and 
by  all  the  sculptors  who  are  complete.  We  hke  to  see  the  form 
made  more  distinct  by  the  indistinctness  of  a  part.  It  marks 
the  beauty  of  those  times  of  the  day  where  part  of  what  we 
see  passes  into  indistinct  air,  bringing  out  all  the  more  into 
relief  what  is  strongly  lit.  A  struggle  to  express  this  can  be 
seen  in  the  Italian  paintings,  let  us  say  of  the  Venetians,  or 
Correggio,  who  used  it  as  a  form  of  sentiment,  in  Leonardo,  who 
studied  it  as  science;  even  in  the  arrangement  of  Michel- 
angelo's "  Last  Judgment " ;  in  Rubens,  who  used  it  for  the 
distribution  of  his  story ;  and  its  secrets  were  being  studied  by 
the  Dutchmen  around  Rembrandt.  Rembrandt  has  insisted  so 
much  upon  this,  has  made  it  so  much  a  means  of  telling  his 
story,  has  so  used  it  to  make  certain  things  important  and 
others  relative,  and  to  impart  the  mystery  of  the  half-seen  to 
what  he  wished  to  be  felt  and  understood,  but  which  might 
distract  the  eye  from  what  he  wished  to  see  in  perfect  clear- 
ness, that  this  method  of  enlisting  our  interest  and  increasing 
our  belief  in  what  he  shows  us  seems  to  belong  particularly  to 


112  GREAT    MASTERS 

him.  He  has  used  it  for  all  purposes ;  from  the  mere  embel- 
lishment of  an  ordinary  representation  to  the  suggestion  of 
sentiment  or  the  vision  of  the  supernatural.  See  how  the  light 
trembles  around  the  mystic  formula  which  appears  at  the  call 
of  Dr.  Faustus,  held  up  by  guessed-at  hands.  See  how,  above 
it,  the  calm,  steady  light  of  the  big  library  window  tells  us 
how  quiet  the  place  was  before  the  incantation.  That  is  the 
story  of  the  light.  It  is  not  necessary  that  it  should  contain,  as 
it  does,  the  initials  that  represent  the  name  of  the  Saviour.  Or 
again,  in  the  picture  of  "  The  Good  Samaritan,"  painted  at  a 
time  he  must  have  wished  for  help  (1648),  behold  the  story  of 
the  falling  shadows ;  for  it  is  almost  night,  and  in  a  moment, 
as  soon  as  the  kindly  preserver  has  reached  the  door  above  the 
steps,  the  wounded,  pitiful  wayfarer  will  be  safe  and  cared  for. 
The  painting  is  full  of  details  of  observation  which  many  a 
painter  would  not  dare  to  drown  in  shade  as  Rembrandt  has 
done.  The  dreamy  landscape,  the  quiet  inn-yard  with  its  stabled 
horses,  the  tired  beast  that  has  carried  the  burden,  and  the 
boy  at  the  reins  who  looks  over  to  see  how  ill  this  man  may  be; 
the  accuracy  in  rendering  the  different  strength  of  the  man  and 
the  boy  carrying  in  the  wounded — all  these  homely  observa- 
tions are  but  a  background  for  the  few  things  that  we  see  dis- 
tinctly. The  wounded  man  is  the  portrait  for  ever  of  a  helpless 
sufferer.  Out  of  the  gloom  appear  his  face,  his  eyes  half- closed, 


DR.  FAUSTUS 

ETCHED    IN     1648 


REMBRANDT  113 

one  brow  lifted,  and  his  lips  open  with  a  tired  groan  half  of 
relief  and  half  of  pain.  His  chest  sinks  in,  his  body  drops,  and 
his  naked  legs  turn  one  around  the  other.  One  feels  how 
much  he  himself  feels  what  a  trouble  he  is  to  those  who  help 
him.  Of  the  actual  painting  all  has  been  said  in  praise ;  but  one 
cannot  exaggerate  the  interest  with  which  every  detail  is  fol- 
lowed, not  one  trifle  more  than  is  necessary,  but  fully  made 
out  where  necessary,  and  all  rendered  with  a  sincerity  which 
has  not  the  slightest  sign  of  cleverness.  All  through  Rem- 
brant's  work,  and  it  is  his  mark,  except  in  the  work  of  the 
mere  boy  pleased  with  his  success,  there  is  no  sign  that  the 
painter  knew  how  wonderfully  he  had  succeeded ;  not  even 
later  when  he  has  gained  at  length,  just  before  the  end,  that 
complete  connection  of  all  his  faculties  for  which  he  struggled 
through  a  lifetime. 

Or,  again,  around  the  head  of  "  The  Christ  at  Emmaus  "  as  He 
breaks  bread  and  the  disciples  recognise  Him,  the  light  in  the 
dark  room  has  a  something  of  phosphorescence,  of  a  tone  and 
colour  which  belong  to  that  face  of  the  dead  man,  risen  after 
having  suffered,  and  whose  hands  break  bread  slowly,  as  if  to 
give  time  to  the  astonished  disciples  to  realise  who  is  with 
them.  As  I  said,  all  this  telling  of  a  story  by  light  and  shade 
presupposes  below  its  sentiment  and  romance  and  mystery  the 
solid  foundation  of  profound  attention  to  form  and  gesture. 


114  GREAT    MASTERS 

Drawing  for  its  own  sake,  form  for  its  own  sake,  colour  for  its 
own  sake  do  not  exist  for  Rembrandt.  They  are  all  so  fused 
together  that  in  such  a  picture  as  that  just  mentioned  the  exe- 
cution is  so  simple  and  yet  so  involved  that  no  one  would  dare 
to  think  of  the  possibility  of  copying  it. 

And  yet  for  many  there  has  been  a  great  desire  to  imitate 
him  in  some  obvious  ways,  and  his  pupils  were  many,  who  had 
his  help  and  occasionally  glided  into  the  manner  of  the  mas- 
ter. We  do  not  know  what  he  taught.  It  must  have  been  of 
extraordinary  importance,  for  it  involves  all  that  there  is  in  the 
art  of  painting.  He  might  have  shown  them  the  secrets  of  his 
earlier  work,  which  is  more  connected  with  the  work  of  the 
Dutchmen  around  them.  He  was  careful,  apparently,  of  their 
individuality,  and  taught  them  separately;  though  also  they 
must  have  helped  him,  as  was  the  fashion  of  all  those  days. 
They  did  so,  even  in  his  etchings,  the  method  of  which  is  more 
personal  than  can  be  that  of  painting,  because  there  are  fewer 
steps  between  the  beginning  and  the  end;  while  painting, 
which  is  made  up  of  surfaces  covered  one  by  the  other,  may 
allow  indefinite  amount  of  work,  well  directed  by  one  man,  to 
be  covered  completely  by  the  last  veilings  and  touches,  which 
are  really  the  painting  that  we  see.  Why  did  he  change  as  he 
went  along  ?  Why  was  he  not  suited  with  his  manner  when  he 
painted  "  The  Lesson  in  Anatomy,"  where  Dr.  Tulp  addresses 


THE    SUPPER    AT    EMMAUS 

THE  LOUVRE,  PARIS 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BR A UN,   CLEMENT  & 


REMBRANDT  115 

the  Regents  or  Inspectors  of  the  Hospital  ?  Surely  this  master- 
piece of  his  early  days,  for  he  was  only  twenty-six  years  old,  is 
a  work  sufficiently  perfect  and  complete.  We  recognise  that  his 
great  characteristic  is  the  anxiety  to  express  still  more  in  the 
same  direction.  The  painter  of  appearances  had  early  attained  a 
power  of  formulation  sufficient  for  a  great  place  in  art.  Appar- 
ently the  student  and  worker  kept  on  observing  the  infinite 
modifications  of  nature.  These  studies  were  accompanied  by 
the  experiences  of  life.  To  express  that  succession  of  experi- 
ence and  feeling,  which  was  himself,  some  more  intimate,  more 
delicate,  more  powerful  means  were  necessary  than  what  might 
do  to  paint  a  handsome  face,  or  brilliant  eyes,  or  the  velvets 
and  satins  which  make  for  instance  the  portraits  of  Burgomas- 
ter Van  Beeresteyn  and  his  wife  (owned  by  Mr.  H.  O.  Have- 
meyer)  so  delicious  to  the  eye,  so  sincere  and  honest  in  the 
rendering  of  the  things  seen. 

As  time  went  on  he  risked  the  changing  of  his  manner,  en- 
dangering sometimes  the  beauty  of  certain  details.  He  had  for 
his  use  only  his  past  habits,  his  own  and  those  of  his  school,  for 
he  differs  only  from  them  by  being  what  we  call  Rembrandt. 
He  had  about  him  common  models,  or  at  the  best  people 
whose  forms  were  not  heroic.  The  habits  about  him  were  vul- 
gar where  they  were  not  plain  and  orderly.  The  costumes 
were  sober,  or  if  rich  were  eccentric.  He  had  little  of  what  is 


116  GREAT    MASTERS 

called  exquisite  taste,  nor  did  he  differ  in  that  from  those 
about  him.  He  seems  to  have  admired  it  in  the  men  of  the 
past,  but  to  have  had  a  perfect  wisdom  which  prevented  his 
gathering  what  he  could  not  fully  use,  what  he  could  not  test 
by  the  life  of  every  day.  What  is  bad  taste  in  him  belongs  to 
others  around  him.  What  is  distinct  and  beautiful  is  appar- 
ently his  alone.  For  the  building  of  the  great  structure  of  the 
painter,  the  planes  and  directions  of  planes,  the  intersection  of 
lines,  what  is  called  the  interior  structure,  his  abundant  etch- 
ings and  drawings  must  have  made  him  master.  Even  in  the 
paintings  occasionally,  in  the  obscurity  of  corners,  he  resorts  to 
those  abbreviations  which  his  etchings  and  drawings  show,  a 
manner  of  starting  only  a  few  points  which  the  mind  fills  in.  I 
remember  in  a  painting  of  "  The  Christ  at  Emmaus,"  which  is 
at  Copenhagen,  and  which  I  copied  in  my  youth,  trying  to  fol- 
low, touch  by  touch,  a  great  dog  lost  in  the  shade,  only  ap- 
pearing occasionally  to  the  eye  as  if  a  little  more  light  might 
make  him  more  distinct ;  and  this  beast  was  made  only  of  five 
or  six  touches  of  definite  space  and  colour,  being  in  paint  what 
the  few  scratchings  of  his  etchings  suggest  to  us  in  black  and 
white.  Perhaps,  after  all,  the  etchings  and  drawings  tell  us 
more  about  himself,  about  his  completeness  of  study,  his  in- 
tensity of  perception,  and  the  extraordinary  sympathy  and  feel 
ing  which  separate  him  from  all  other  artists.  There  he  could— 


DETAILS    FROM    THE    LESSON    IN    ANATOMY 

THE    IMPERIAL    MUSEUM,    THE    HAGUE 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRAUN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


REMBRANDT  117 

for  he  was  Rembrandt — throw  away  the  greater  part  of  his 
armour  of  art.  Perhaps  in  the  drawings  in  which  he  worked 
entirely  for  himself  we  see  still  more  intimately  the  mind  of 
the  master.  But  they  are  so  subtle,  they  appeal  to  such  a  per- 
ception of  nature,  such  a  sympathy  with  the  expression  of  the 
soul,  that  they  require  in  the  mind  that  looks  at  them  a  sym- 
pathy that  all  cannot  give.  At  my  age,  and  after  long  experi- 
ence, I  can  say  so.  As  a  younger  man  I  only  guessed  at  it. 
With  the  great  public  and  for  us  of  the  profession,  the  famous 
picture,  painted  seven  years  before  his  death,  known  as  "  The 
Syndics  of  the  Drapers'  Guild,"  represents  perhaps  the  result  of 
all  his  work  as  a  mere  painter.  In  it  he  is  young  again  not- 
withstanding his  approaching  age ;  but  all  that  he  has  learned, 
his  thoughts  during  life,  have  helped  him  make  it.  All  the 
more  do  we  feel  this,  because  this  one  picture  brings  in 
nothing  but  portraits,  all  separate  and  individual,  but  so  con- 
nected that  one  sees  them  at  a  blow.  There  is  no  apparent 
arrangement  as  in  "  The  Lesson  in  Anatomy."  They  are  doing 
nothing  in  particular  more  than  what  would  take  them  around 
a  table  to  listen  to  the  reading  of  accounts,  and  yet  the  ap- 
pearance of  importance  of  a  number  of  men  chosen  for  a  pur- 
pose of  decision  has  never  before  or  afterward  been  so  well 
expressed.  They  almost  speak,  but  do  not  open  their  lips. 
They  are  not  posed.  They  are  there.  The  slightest  change  and 


118  GREAT    MASTERS 

they  would  be  sitting  for  their  portraits,  but  they  are  not. 
They  have,  as  it  were,  been  surprised  by  somebody's  opening 
the  door,  by  some  paper  brought  to  them,  and  one  sees  what 
they  have  been  doing  before,  and  what  they  will  return  to. 
The  painting  as  mere  painting  is  as  wonderful  as  that  of  the 
most  beautiful  surfaces  ever  covered  by  the  brush.  Rembrandt 
has  joined  here  to  deep  appreciation  of  character  that  observa- 
tion of  life  as  it  looks,  which  was  the  aim  of  his  art ;  that  is  of 
the  artist  in  the  man.  The  man  himself,  as  I  have  said,  apart 
from  a  few  paintings,  is  better  seen  through  the  etchings  or 
the  drawings.  They  have  all  the  superiority  that  belongs  to 
the  dependence  on  few  things  and  a  careful  selection  in  those. 
Not  that  they  are  separated  from  his  pictures  in  any  way,  nor 
can  we  disentangle  them.  But  we  see  in  them  his  predilections 
and  the  external  things  on  which  he  bases  his  dreams.  For 
after  all,  it  is  as  the  great  dreamer  that  Rembrandt  stands 
almost  alone,  unless  we  choose  to  think  of  him  with  such  other 
dreamers  as  Michelangelo  or  Shakespeare.  He  remains  the 
great  exponent  of  the  pity  and  tenderness  of  Bible  story,  of  its 
being  of  all  times,  and  a  synopsis  of  all  human  life ;  and  he 
remains,  as  well,  the  master  of  many  realities,  the  poet  of 
the  mystery  of  light,  and  the  painter  of  the  individual  human 
soul. 


REMBRANDT  119 


CONCERNING  THE  DRAWINGS  OF  REMBRANDT 

A  singular  fortune  has  preserved  to  us  many  of  Rembrandt's 
drawings  and  sketches,  beyond  the  number  to  be  expected  in 
the  remains  of  an  artist  whose  painted  and  engraved  work  is 
so  large.  Usually  the  faint  projects  and  intentions  for  com- 
pleted work  disappear;  they  are  as  scaffoldings  taken  down 
and  broken  up  when  the  building  is  completed. 

We  can  see  in  the  story  of  Rembrandt's  life  how  these  acci- 
dental and  private  records  have  been  preserved  through  a  spe- 
cial set  of  circumstances.  Firstly,  the  fact  that  the  artist  at- 
tained an  early  reputation  must  have  given  value  to  things 
that  he  could  use  as  gifts ;  or  have  made  some  of  them  inter- 
esting to  collectors.  Then  the  remarkable  appreciation  of  his 
etchings  would  have  given  to  his  drawings  a  value  at  least  of 
curiosity  which  would  not  belong  to  the  drawings  of  a  man 
known  only  as  a  painter.  The  very  anxiety  to  possess  various 
states  of  his  etchings  might  also  tend  to  preserve  drawings  re- 
lated, more  or  less  closely,  to  the  etchings.  Finally  the  catas- 
trophe which  threw  every  belonging  of  his  upon  the  open  mar- 
ket, obliged  the  keeping  for  sale  of  ordinary  scraps  and  bits  of 
work.  But  this  does  not  at  all  mean  that  we  have  the  good 


120  GREAT    MASTERS 

fortune  to  possess  the  studies  for  Rembrandt's  famous  paint- 
ings, nor  for  a  fair  proportion  of  the  celebrated  etchings.  There 
is  Uttle  doubt  that  many  of  these  were  lost  during  the  period 
of  his  decline  in  public  appreciation.  And  yet  there  always 
remained  admirers;  and  among  engravers  and  etchers  men 
who  would  recognise,  more  or  less  distinctly,  the  enormous 
value  of  his  sketches  and  drawings  as  connected  with  the  art 
of  etching  or  engraving,  for  their  manner  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  manner  of  his  etchings,  with  the  extraor- 
dinary use  of  line,  and  of  the  filling  the  line  in  with  graduated 
darks. 

However  it  may  be,  all  of  Rembrandt's  drawings,  even  the 
merest  scribblings,  are  of  first  importance.  They  testify  to  a 
perception  and  power  of  expression  which  the  etchings  cannot 
have  so  fully,  for  the  latter  are  definitely  chosen  arrangements, 
limited  in  their  make  by  the  material  used.  The  extremely 
delicate  suggestion  of  the  drawings  could  not  be  reproduced  in 
the  scratch  of  metal  on  metal.  And  there  is,  necessarily,  in  the 
work  of  art  meant  to  address  a  great  number  of  people  a  less 
intimate  side  than  in  the  work  of  art  addressed  to  that  one 
judge  of  exquisitely  trained  perception,  who  is  the  artist,  and 
who  can  stay  his  hand  at  any  moment  he  prefers,  content  with 
a  suggestiveness  that  he  fully  understands.  To  all  artists  the 
successful  sketch  or  partial  study  brings  back  a  number  of  at- 


REMBRANDT  121 

tending  circumstances  which  cannot  exist  in  the  memory  of 
the  outsider,  who  is  not  in  the  confidence  of  the  moment  and 
of  the  feehngs  which  directed  the  record. 

It  is  a  surprising  circumstance  that  so  much  in  the  sketch  of 
a  great  master  should  be  in  part  our  own  creation ;  our  own 
calling  up  of  memories  at  his  mere  suggestion.  This  is  true  of 
ever  so  many  cases  of  masters,  small  as  well  as  great.  But  in 
no  drawings  is  more  conveyed  by  few  means  than  in  the  draw- 
ings of  Rembrandt.  They  are  appeals  to  the  existence  in  his 
mind  and  in  yours  of  things  that  he  does  not  say.  The  great 
master  of  light  and  shade  and  of  the  planes  and  interchange  of 
these  two  sides  of  light,  resorts  in  his  drawings  to  a  suggestion 
of  this  enveloping  atmosphere,  by  mere  lines  and  sometimes 
by  the  mere  record  of  the  direction  of  a  line.  A  landscape 
opens  out  into  the  sun  or  mist  by  merely  the  record  of  the 
place  of  certain  objects  in  the  picture,  of  which  he  makes  an 
abbreviated  note.  In  the  same  way  the  expression  of  a  face  or 
of  a  whole  attitude  is  given  by  the  place  in  which  the  face  or 
attitude  might  be.  A  few  great  planes,  as  the  painter,  or  sculp- 
tor, or  architect,  calls  them,  are  chosen,  and  we  fill  in  at  once 
the  necessary  construction.  A  mere  scratch  or  two,  sometimes 
merely  indicating  a  direction,  give  in  his  drawings  some  of  the 
most  intimate  and  delicate  feelings  that  the  human  soul  can 
express  through  the  body.  This  we  know  in  the  etchings ;  but 


122  GREAT    MASTERS 

the  drawings  are  still  more  intimate,  still  nearer  the  expression 
of  feehng  or  the  accuracy  of  motion. 

The  special  study  and  the  appreciation  of  the  look  of  the 
eye  is  characteristic  of  Rembrandt  all  the  way  through  his 
work,  painted  or  engraved,  and,  necessarily,  in  the  drawings, 
however  abbreviated  their  expression.  For  example,  in  the 
drawing  of  Joseph  interpreting  his  dream — the  eyes,  made  of 
a  couple  of  lines  not  bigger  than  a  small  pin's  point,  are  each 
one  different.  They  all  hsten,  except  Joseph's,  which  is,  as  it 
were,  turned  within ;  he  is  recalling  what  he  has  seen  and  his 
eyes  look  on  nothing  around  him.  Even  there,  the  little  child 
neither  looks  nor  listens  ;  he  has  a  plaything  and  that  is  all  to 
him.  Jealousy,  anxiety,  disbelief,  trust,  all  these  things  which 
even  Shakespeare  has  to  unfold  in  many  pages,  are  told  within 
the  narrow  compass  of  three  or  four  inches.  The  name  of 
Shakespeare  comes  up  easily  in  thinking  of  Rembrandt,  who  is 
his  nearest  parallel  in  the  art  of  painting.  With  Rembrandt, 
too,  the  entire  subject  is  tremulous  with  life — a  life  at  first  ob- 
served, or  noticed,  or  felt  by  the  young  man,  and  then  gradu- 
ally classified  and  recalled  by  him  who  has  seen.  In  the  Job 
visited  by  his  friends,  the  story  is  supremely  informed  as  by 
the  experience  of  many  things.  There,  we  notice  Rembrandt's 
changing  of  the  movement  of  the  head  of  Job,  which  in  both 
cases  expresses  the  resigned  patience  of  the  man  subjected  to 


^  ^;^^itr„...ii_J 


REMBRANDT  123 

useless  and  misunderstood  exhortation ;  and  yet  they  are  sad 
also,  Job's  comforters — they  feel  for  him  and  muse  on  the  as- 
tonishing circumstances.  And  it  is  all  so  grave  and  so  sad,  so 
far  from  anything  but  a  high  and  broad  view  of  the  misery  of 
life.  Here,  as  in  most  of  his  work,  Rembrandt  uses  a  modifica- 
tion of  Oriental  costume,  influenced  by  what  he  saw  about 
him  to  place  his  figures  in  a  world  somewhat  remote,  but  still 
touching  that  of  the  everyday  of  the  period.  It  allows  him  to 
bring  home  at  once  the  drama  he  is  unfolding  into  to-day. 
These  people  are  you  or  I  or  anybody,  whatever.  The  lesson 
is  continued  from  the  time  of  its  occurrence ;  it  is  not  remote, 
it  cannot  be  avoided  by  saying  that  things  were  different  then : 
this  is  a  religious  mystery — this  a  classical  fable.  The  lesson  is 
upon  us  at  the  moment. 

Of  course,  in  those  of  his  drawings  which  are  records  of 
nature  seen,  and  sketches  on  the  spot,  all  these  points  of  sym- 
pathy and  observation  are  more  evident,  and,  however  wonder- 
ful, are  not  so  surprising.  That  is  to  say  that  we  expect  them. 
We  expect  that  he  will  be  faithful  in  his  copying,  since  he  is  so 
faithful  in  his  dream.  And  how  completely  he  has  observed 
even  things  that  he  was  unacquainted  with,  as  in  the  sketch  of 
an  Indian  Prince,  seated  on  a  throne,  receiving  a  written  mes- 
sage, in  which  the  accuracy  of  costume  and  appreciation  of 
type  antedate  by  almost  two  centuries  our  appreciation  of  for- 


124  GREAT    MASTERS 

eign  representation.  For  we  all  know  how  this  curious  collector 
was  open  to  all  sorts  of  influences  and  used  them  as  fuel  for 
the  fire  kept  up  by  him ;  therein  not  differing  from  all  the  bet- 
ter artists  who  are  great  absorbers  of  impressions,  but  whose 
record  of  such  impressions  has  not  often  remained  to  us. 

There  is  a  drawing  representing  Jacob  w^eeping  at  the  bring* 
ing  in  of  Joseph's  bloody  coat,  which  is  an  extraordinary  speci- 
men of  Rembrandt's  dramatic  power,  if  one  can  call  anything 
so  near  nature  dramatic.  A  few  lines  give  the  old  man's  sudden 
breaking  down  ;  a  few  more  lines  distort  his  face  in  an  agony 
which  cannot  be  mistaken ;  a  form  of  speecliless  pain  to  be  re- 
lieved later  by  hysterical  weeping;  and  the  shambling  self-con- 
sciousness of  the  lying  messenger  is  so  rapidly  expressed  by  a 
few  sweeps  of  a  brush  that  it  is  we  who  place  the  figure  of  a 
man  inside  of  these  touches.  There  are  also  faces,  or  rather  the 
mere  expressions  of  bystanders,  watching  the  effect  of  the  news, 
and  one  or  two  other  partial  sketches  on  the  edge  of  the  paper 
indicate  that  the  artist  saw  the  scene  at  first  from  another 
point  of  view,  and  gave  this  up  rapidly  for  a  better  one,  how- 
ever successful  the  first  perception  had  been ;  for  these  draw- 
ings of  Rembrandt  which  tell  stories  are  not  composed.  They 
are,  as  it  were,  *'  the  record  of  a  former  sight,"  almost  instan- 
taneous, but  a  thing  really  seen.  So  that  a  complete  painting, 
even  his  own  (and  he  is  one  of  the  most  complete  and  elabo- 


REMBRANDT  125 

rate  of  painters),  would  not  give  more  than  the  details  of  the 
picture  seen  and  noted  in  the  few  lines  of  the  drawing.  In  that 
way  Rembrandt's  drawings  are  the  most  remarkable  ever  made. 
Nor  could  they  have  been  so  made  with  such  evident  rapidity, 
as  if  translating  in  a  hurry  what  he  saw,  without  the  prodig- 
ious training  of  copying  from  nature  which  he  had  and  which 
he  shares  in  common  with  the  other  Dutchmen  of  his  day. 

One  cannot  suppose  these  drawings  begun,  to  take  up  again ; 
they  are  so  much  the  record  of  one  impression.  But  looking  at 
them  more  coldly,  we  can  see  that  they  are  sometimes  cor- 
rected or  modified ;  showing  also  the  other  side  of  Rembrandt 
— the  calmness  and  the  critical  judgment  which  must  belong 
to  any  very  great  "  executant."  There  are  drawings  which  are 
more  in  the  nature  of  a  mere  study  from  nature,  to  be  used  as 
a  mere  formal  document.  In  these,  the  correction  and  re- 
touching is  naturally  more  evident.  So  that  also  in  the  pass- 
ing from  one  to  another  of  his  drawings  we  meet  most  dissimi- 
lar intentions.  But  these  are  the  natural  sides  of  the  work  of  a 
profession  which  requires  both  great  sensitiveness  and  sympa- 
thy and  even  passion ;  but  also  like  all  professions,  calmness 
and  detachment  and  slow  patience  and  critical  judgment  of 
one's  own  work. 

From  what  I  have  said  one  might  suppose  that  every  art 
student  should  have  these  drawings.  But  that  is  a  very  differ- 


126  GREAT    MASTERS 

ent  question.  A  similar  one  is  presented  in  the  study  of  the 
greater  poets.  How  near,  should  we  ask  ourselves,  could  the 
student  come  to  the  best  appreciaiton  of  the  greater  and  more 
difficult  works  ?  It  may  be  that  he  needs  lower  or  less  involved 
forms  that  his  mind  can  analyse  and  which  he  can  copy.  For 
it  is  hopeless  to  copy  Rembrandt  or  Michelangelo,  except  as 
mere  training.  What  we  know  of  them  involves  long  previous 
study,  and  a  special  attitude  of  mind,  often  extremely  personal. 
Were  it  not  for  that,  the  drawings  of  the  great  masters  would 
be  the  easiest  models.  But  portions  of  them  can  be  studied, 
as,  for  instance,  we  travel  through  a  country.  A  student  can 
thereby  appreciate  the  great  difference  and  learn  what  it  means 
to  be  a  great  draughtsman.  And  if  his  lines  of  thought  and 
feeling  are  not  in  sympathy,  there  is  no  danger  of  his  being 
forced  into  a  path  he  cannot  tread. 

But  he  can  use  these  intimate  records  of  a  great  man's  mind 
as  a  strong  stimulus ;  as  an  uphfting  out  of  the  ordinary  into 
larger  life,  at  least  for  a  moment,  as  we  poor  people  read  a 
passage  of  Homer,  or  some  lines  of  Shakespeare,  or  Dante, 
without  the  slightest  intention  of  even  trying  to  imitate  them. 
Only  that  for  a  few  moments  we  breathe  a  greater  air  than 
that  of  every  day. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 

IMPERIAL  GALLERY,  VIENNA 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  HAN  F  ST A  ENGL 


RUBENS 


"  Pray  for  a  healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body." 

FROM    THE    TENTH    SATIRE    OF    JUVENAL 

Inscription  on  Rubens' s  house,  now  rmmber  7  in  the  street  that  bears  his  name 


RUBENS 


"  Ex  illustrissima  stirpe  Rubeniana"  (Of  that  most  illustrious 
line  of  Rubens).  This  inscription  I  read  nearly  fifty  years  ago, 
on  the  tomb  of  a  lady  of  rank,  recently  deceased,  and  buried  in 
the  Rubens  chapel  of  the  Church  of  St.  James  at  Antwerp. 
There  the  great  master  also  lies  under  his  own  famous  painting 
called  St.  George,  which  traditionally  represents  himself  and 
his  family.* 

I  quoted  this  inscription  some  little  while  after  to  an  Amer- 
ican gentleman,  a  descendant  of  Calvert  of  Baltimore,  too,  also 
a  descendant  of  Rubens,  who  often  thought  of  the  honour  of 
his  own  right  to  interment  in  that  same  chapel.  This  illustrious 
descent  has  its  beginnings,  however,  in  the  more  humble 
origin  of  Rubens 's  family — a  respectable  and  ancient  family  of 
traders  of  the  great  commercial  city  of  Antwerp.  But  he  was 
not  born  there,  and  even  the  certainty  of  his  place  of  birth  was 
unsettled  until  recently.  Rubens,  himself,  and  his  people  seem 
to  have  been  ignorant  of  the  singular  secret.  Those  most  inter- 
ested were  anxious  not  to  reveal  them,  and  his  mother  had 

*  Traditionally  but  incorrectly,  I  believe. 


130  GREAT    MASTERS 

promised  to  be  silent.  His  father  had  not  engaged  in  trade,  but 
had  studied  law,  and  had  become  a  doctor  in  both  civil  and  ec- 
clesiastical law.  He  had  married  Mary  Pypelinx,  the  daughter 
of  a  merchant.  The  times  were  troubled.  Antwerp  had  become 
rich  and  prosperous  with  religious  and  commercial  liberty.  Re- 
ligious dissension  and  the  imperiahsm  of  Spain  at  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  brought  disaster  upon  the  Low  Countries — 
a  record  of  political  and  religious  persecution,  whose  memory 
is  still  fresh  in  history.  The  reformation  had  many  friends  in 
Antwerp  ;  and  many  people  hke  John  Rubens,  the  father  of 
the  artist,  were  more  or  less  affected  by  the  new  ideas.  Advo- 
cates and  preachers  of  the  newer  doctrines  poured  from  Ger- 
many, Switzerland,  and  Holland  into  Antwerp,  where  on  the 
other  hand  the  Jesuits  were  struggling  with  equal  courage,  and 
finally  with  greater  success.  The  strife  was  intense.  John  Ru- 
bens represents  in  himself  this  struggle.  He  was  always  sus- 
pected of  Calvinistic  views,  and  even  styled  "  the  most  learned 
Calvinist."  But  externally  he  kept  within  legal  bounds.  Still, 
denounced  at  length,  he  determined  in  1568  to  leave,  obtain- 
ing honourable  recommendations  from  his  colleagues  on  the 
town  council  of  Antwerp,  and  withdrew  to  Cologne,  which  was 
a  place  of  refuge  and  a  manner  of  neutral  ground.  There  John 
Rubens,  obliged  to  recover  his  fortunes,  came  into  the  service 
of  Anne  of  Saxony,  wife  of  William  of  Nassau,  the  Silent 


THE    ARTIST'S    TWO   SONS 

ROYAL  GALLERY,  DRESDEN 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  HANFSTAENGL 


RUBENS  131 

Prince  of  Orange,  a  foremost  champion  of  Protestantism, 
whose  name  is  for  ever  associated  with  the  freeing  of  Holland, 
and  the  establishment  of  its  separate  and  tenacious  power. 

Anne  of  Saxony  was  living  apart  from  her  husband,  and  in 
Cologne  with  the  hope  of  recovering  properties  sequestrated  by 
the  Duke  of  Alva.  William  was  no  model  of  conjugal  virtue, 
which  may  pass  for  some  excuse  of  Anne,  a  passionate  woman, 
violent  in  her  reproaches  of  his  infidelities.  John  Rubens  be- 
came her  steward  and  her  lover,  and  followed  her  to  the  little 
town  of  Siegen  in  the  domain  of  John  of  Nassau,  brother  of 
William.  She  had  left  her  children  and  servants  in  the  care  of 
Rubens's  wife.  There  in  Siegen  in  1517,  upon  a  denunciation, 
John  Rubens  was  thrown  into  prison,  the  princess  acknowl- 
edging everything  with  a  hope  of  saving  Rubens,  who  him- 
self admitted  his  fault,  writing  to  his  wife  in  acknowledg- 
ment. 

The  wife  forgave  him ;  but  the  Nassaus  were  perplexed  con- 
cerning public  scandal  and  the  taint  upon  the  birth  of  the  prin- 
cess's child.  Rubens's  vnfe  threaten^  to  reveal  the  secret  if 
her  husband's  Hfe  were  taken,  but  promised  to  keep  silence  with 
TL  hope  of  obtaining  his  release.  Two  years  were  passed  in  these 
trying  circumstances,  until  Mary  Pypelinx  obtained  that  the 
prisoner  should  be  released  on  bail  under  conditions  of  secrecy 
and  obscurity;    and  the  family  were  allowed  to  remain  in 


132  GREAT    MASTERS 

Siegen,  where,  on  June  28,  1577,  a  second  child,  Peter  Paul 
Rubens,  was  born. 

Later  they  were  allowed  to  remove  to  Cologne,  where 
Rubens  and  his  wife  struggled  for  a  competency,  made  more 
difficult  by  the  disgraceful  exactions  of  the  Nassau  family  and 
the  necessity  of  concealment.  Even  after  the  death  of  John 
Rubens,  his  wife  maintained  this  concealment  to  protect  her 
children  from  future  danger.  Hence  the  tradition  of  Rubens's 
birth  in  Cologne  and  the  fact  that  neither  of  the  two  sons 
knew  of  this  dangerous  blot  upon  the  name.  Had  he  known 
of  it,  Rubens  later  might  have  been  inconvenienced  when  he 
was  sent  as  envoy  to  Holland  by  the  Governor  of  the  Low 
Countries.  Not  only  is  this  story  necessary  to  explain  the  early 
life  of  the  great  master,  but  it  is  right  to  record  it  in  honour  of 
the  mother  of  so  great  a  man,  whose  success  in  life  she  pre- 
pared and  whose  glory  she  ought  to  share. 

The  widow,  with  three  surviving  children,  returned  to  Ant- 
werp in  1587,  to  a  city  attempting  to  recover  from  disasters  of 
most  cruel  wars.  Both  brothers,  Philip  and  Peter  Paul,  were 
brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  study  and  learning,  Peter 
Paul  being  distinguished  at  school  beyond  other  boys,  know- 
ing French,  Flemish,  German,  and  Latin  also,  well  enough  to 
have  kept  them  in  practice  during  all  his  life.  In  Latin,  neces- 
sary for  learned  correspondence,  he  may  have  been  grounded 


RUBENS  133 

at  Cologne,  traditionally,  under  the  Jesuits,  the  influence  of 
whose  humane  teaching  seems  to  have  persisted  during  his 
entire  life,  and  to  have  helped  a  nature  singularly  large  and 
open  to  all  influences. 

When  later  we  shall  follow  him  as  an  artist,  we  shall  recog- 
nise that  of  all  men  who  have  expressed  themselves  in  the  art 
of  painting,  Rubens  had  the  widest  sympathy  for  the  whole  of 
life.  In  his  own  works  are  reflected  the  attempt  of  that  age  to 
unite  all  divergences,  and  to  break  down  the  lines  which  often 
separate  the  more  spiritual  demands  from  the  natural  enjoy- 
ment of  nature  and  of  art,  and  the  common  likings  of  man. 
The  boy  was  at  first  trained  for  the  study  of  law,  the  natural 
turn  to  a  profession  for  energies  which  could  not  have  the 
support  of  acquired  capital.  Belgium,  however,  was  a  place 
where  art  had  flourished,  and  where  the  art  of  painting  had 
a  special  birth.  To  it  in  old  days  had  come  the  students  of 
Italy,  anxious  to  know  the  secret  methods  which  gave  splendour 
and  permanency  to  the  work  of  Flemish  masters.  Apart  from 
the  charms  of  religious  feeling,  of  poetic  expression,  the  art  of 
Flanders  had  preserved  even  in  its  poorer  representatives  a 
tradition  of  practice  in  which  still  survived  the  solidity  and 
splendour  born  far  back  from  practise  in  gold  and  metals  and 
the  glories  of  transparent  glass.  Notwithstanding  devastations 
of  war  and  religious  bigotry,  the  buildings  of  the  past  still  con- 


134  GREAT    MASTERS 

tained  those  great  and  little  masterpieces  which  make  Bel- 
gium one  of  the  richest  of  all  countries  in  the  art  of  painting. 
The  open,  fresh  nature  of  the  boy,  Peter  Paul,  must  have 
felt  this  joy  of  the  eye,  as  well  as  the  analogous  splendours  of 
church  worship  and  civic  ceremonies  in  which  the  Netherlands 
delighted.  A  practical  demand  for  workers  in  such  things  was 
then  all  ready,  and  the  mother  wisely  allowed  her  boy  to  fol- 
low the  bent  now  beginning.  There  were  masters  preparing  a 
new  path  :  some  of  them  too  much  impressed  by  the  mistrans- 
lated meaning  of  Itahan  art ;  but  among  them  a  few  already 
indicating  the  path  which  Rubens  was  to  make — the  broadest 
ever  made  in  power  of  colour  and  expression  of  life.  Jordaens, 
whose  work  merges  later  into  that  of  Rubens,  was  being  pre- 
pared under  the  teaching  of  Van  Noort.  The  influence  of  the 
latter  upon  Rubens  as  a  pupil  is  obscure,  uncertain  all  the 
more  that  there  are  doubts  upon  the  authenticity  of  some  of 
the  teacher's  paintings ;  and  Van  Veen,  to  whom  Rubens  went 
next,  is  rather  a  cold  ground  for  such  an  exuberant  plant  as 
Rubens.  But  Van  Veen  was  scholarly,  must  have  taught  well 
what  he  did  teach,  and  Rubens  was  a  lover  of  knowledge  and 
an  assimilator  of  everything  useful.  Van  Veen  gave  him  all  he 
knew,  as  Philip  Rubens  tells  us.  We  do  not  know  exactly 
what  Rubens  did  at  the  time.  It  is  traditional  that  the  works 
of  master  and  pupil  were  often  confused.  But  certainly  the 


PORTRAIT    OF    AN    OLD    WOMAN 

ROYAL    PINAKOTHEK,    MUNICH 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     HANFSTAENGL 


RUBENS  135 

teacher's  praise  of  Italy  and  its  marvels  must  easily  have  per- 
suaded the  youth  to  try  the  country  whose  name  stood  for  art 
itself.  So  that  on  May  9,  1600,  he  set  out  for  Italy. 

His  stay  was  to  last  several  years  and  his  influence  to  shape 
an  art  which,  notwithstanding  his  education,  has  always  taken 
a  shape  just  outside  of  Italian.  A  good  fortune  which  was  to 
follow  him  through  life,  if  we  can  call  good  fortune  the  power 
of  a  happy  use  of  circumstances,  brought  the  young  artist  on 
his  arrival  in  Venice  to  the  acquaintance  and  consequent  pa- 
tronage of  Vincenzo  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua,  who  desired  a 
painter  attached  to  his  court.  The  very  introduction  of  Rubens 
to  the  great  lord  may  have  been  already  the  result  of  a  certain 
fine  manner  and  good-natured  courtesy,  which  is  one  of  the 
marks  by  which  he  is  remembered.  Perhaps  his  brief  appren- 
ticeship as  a  page  to  the  Countess  Van  Lalaing  some  years 
before  had  made  him  more  at  ease  with  the  manners  of  a 
court. 

The  Duke  of  Mantua  was  a  man  of  pleasure,  an  irregular 
patron,  but  perhaps  all  the  more  had  Rubens  opportunity  to 
study  the  works  of  art  which  a  residence  in  that  part  of  Italy 
allowed.  We  know  that  he  appreciated  almost  everything  in 
the  forms  of  art  that  he  came  across,  and  a  residence  in  Rome 
allowed  him  still  larger  study.  Profoundly  interested  in  the 
remains  of  antiquity  he  made  continuous  studies  of  whatever 


136  GREAT    MASTERS 

he  could  see,  learning  to  understand  them  also  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  historian  and  antiquarian.  Raphael  and 
Michelangelo  were  copied  by  him  as  one  of  the  methods  of 
the  painters  of  the  time.  In  Northern  Italy  he  studied  what 
was  nearer  to  his  feelings,  the  works  of  Correggio,  those  of 
Tintoretto  and  Veronese,  and  his  favourite  Titian  in  Venice. 
The  paintings  of  Giuho  Romano  about  him  at  Mantua  in- 
fluenced him  and  gave  him  confidence  in  his  own  powers  of 
arrangement.  Statues  and  bas-reliefs  he  everywhere  sketched 
and  copied,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  has  done  this  is  a 
shorthand  explanation  of  the  method  of  his  study.  Occasion- 
ally he  has  copied,  but  very  rarely,  as  our  scholars  do  from  the 
cast :  but  usually  it  is  a  way  of  comprehending  the  image 
before  him  and  making  it  over  again  in  more  living  form.  The 
marble  or  statue  passes  in  his  drawing  into  what  it  is  meant  to 
represent — the  living  surface  of  flesh,  the  expression  of  the 
eye  or  lip.  Of  himself  he  practised  the  manner  of  study 
which  he  described  years  afterward  in  the  little  essay  on  the 
imitation  of  statues  which  we  know  in  its  Latin  text,  and  its 
French  translation  by  De  Piles.  "  There  are,"  he  says,  "  paint- 
ers for  whom  such  imitation  is  very  useful ;  others,  for  whom 
it  is  so  dangerous  that  it  may  almost  annihilate  art  in  them. 
In  my  opinion,  in  order  to  reach  supreme  perfection,  'tis 
necessary  not  onlv  to  become  familiar  with  the  statues,  but  to 


RUBENS  137 

be  steeped  in  their  innermost  meaning.  Yet  such  knowledge 
must  be  used  with  prudence,  a7id  with  enfu^e  detachment  from 
the  work  ;  for  many  unskilled  artists,  and  even  some  of  talent, 
do  not  distinguish  matter  from  form,  nor  the  figure  from  the 
substance  which  ruled  the  sculptor's  work."  Therein  Rubens 
has  taught  as  wisely  as  is  possible ;  but  only  for  those  who  can 
understand.  Therein,  also,  he  has  told  us  his  entire  story. 
Fond  as  he  was  of  introducing  actual  copies  from  nature  and 
making  of  the  use  of  portraits  in  imaginary  subjects  the  ap- 
parent web  of  his  work,  his  realism,  that  is  to  say  his  copy  of 
the  thing  before  him,  is  only  used  to  add  to  the  illusion ;  to 
make  one  trust  the  reality  of  the  entire  work  because  of  the 
evidence  of  certain  parts.  During  these  times  of  study  and  of 
copying  pictures  for  presents  by  his  patron  he  also  painted 
from  orders  mostly  for  church  decorations  in  which  he  tried  to 
compose  and  imagine  upon  the  lines  of  what  became  his  fur- 
ther development.  A  few  more  portraits,  also,  were  part  of 
his  duty. 

In  the  various  uses  made  of  an  attendant  upon  princes,  he 
was  sent  by  the  Duke  of  Mantua  to  accompany  certain  presents 
made  to  the  King  of  Spain  and  to  persons  of  importance  at  that 
court.  Italy  hung  on  the  relations  with  the  Spaniard  ;  and  the 
smaller  princes  had  greater  neighbours  whose  movements  they 
were  obliged  to  foresee  and  propitiate.  Of  this  modest  form  of 


188  GREAT    MASTERS 

embassy,  Rubens  acquitted  himself  well ;  painting  pictures  for 
Spain,  as  well  as  delivering  those  intrusted  to  him.  In  the  de- 
tailed record  of  this  trip  we  recognise  already  a  man  anxious  to 
meet  the  good  graces  of  those  whom  he  has  to  serve,  but  main- 
taining a  dignified  reticence  and  modesty  as  a  manner  of  pro- 
tection in  an  inferior  position.  When  later  he  returns  to  Spain 
as  a  trusted  envoy  from  the  aunt  of  the  King,  he  will  have 
learned  the  habits  and  manners  of  the  court.  On  his  coming 
back  to  Italy  Rubens  hesitated  at  leaving  the  uncertain  service 
of  the  Duke  of  Mantua,  but  the  illness  of  his  mother  determined 
his  return  on  October  28,  1608,  too  late,  however,  to  find  her 
alive. 

We  have  a  record,  however  inexact,  of  the  grief  felt  by  him 
at  her  loss.  Fond  of  Hfe  and  of  enjoyment,  Rubens  showed,  in 
all  his  relations  with  those  that  he  loved,  a  sensitiveness  not  dis- 
similar to  his  delight  in  happiness,  concerning  which  obedience 
to  natural  feeUng  he  has  written  some  touching  words — words 
which  carry  in  the  formal  language  of  that  day  the  repetition  of 
what  I  first  assumed — that  union  of  Christian  sentiment  with 
the  philosophic  consideration  of  life  spread  out  for  him  in  the 
teachings  of  the  pagan  thinkers  he  was  fond  of  "  I  have  no  in- 
tention of  ever  attaining  an  impassive  stoicism.  In  my  opinion, 
no  man  can  be  wholly  unmoved  by  the  different  impressions 
that  events  produce  in  him,  or  preserve  an  equal  indifference 


RUBENS  139 

toward  all  worldly  matters.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  H 
it  right  on  certain  occasions  to  blame  such  indifference  rather 
than  praise  it.  And  that  the  feelings  that  rise  spontaneously  in 
our  hearts  should  not  be  condemned." 

Rubens  returned  to  a  more  fortunate  home,  an  artist  not  un- 
known, a  man  accustomed  to  life  of  many  degrees,  to  the  habits 
of  courts,  their  dangers,  and  to  the  goodwill  or  indifference  of 
patrons.  He  was  but  thirty-two,  handsome  and  stately,  as  we 
know  by  his  portraits,  and  by  universal  testimony.  He  had 
developed  by  practice  and  study  his  natural  artistic  inclinations 
and  the  teachings  of  his  first  masters.  He  had  had  much  prac- 
tice :  painting  now  for  study,  now  to  please  patrons,  now  to 
accomplish  some  work  that  embodied  the  result  of  his  acquired 
knowledge.  The  continuance  of  copying,  which  he  followed  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  the  time,  gave  him  not  only  insight 
into  the  meanings  of  other  minds  and  their  manners  of  expres- 
sion, but  also  that  joining  of  habits  of  mind  and  hand  which 
make  a  secondary  nature  acting  for  us  almost  mechanically. 
The  habit  of  following  by  mind  and  hand  beautiful  proportions, 
beautiful  Unes,  beautiful  combinations,  makes  them  a  part  of 
one's  self  which  works  alongside  of  the  more  distinct  intentions 
of  the  will.  The  reminiscences  which  fill  the  works  of  the  greater 
artists  are  thus  not  copies  or  imitations,  but  the  almost  invol- 
untary record  of  previous  admiration  and  study.  Perhaps  in  no 


140  GREAT    MASTERS 

one  has  this  assimilation  been  greater  than  in  Rubens.  His 
execution  is  a  shorthand  expression  of  the  many  records  in  his 
mind.  The  swift  and  easy  touch,  the  brief  indication,  the  large 
passages  of  paint  flowing  as  easily  as  speech,  are  the  brief  state- 
ment of  enormous  absorption  of  nature  and  of  art.  In  that  way 
the  mechanical  execution  of  work  has  not  the  appearance  with 
him  of  a  patient,  protracted  attention,  which  may  tire  both  the 
maker  and  the  looker  on.  It  shows  a  delight  in  summing  up 
what  he  has  wished  to  say  which  is  both  enthusiastic  and  poetic. 
The  surfaces  which  he  has  painted  are  in  themselves  beautiful 
expressions  of  the  mind.  Sufficient  when  other  materials  of  his 
work  are  coarse,  or  vulgar  or  commonplace,  to  cover  them  with 
a  gloried  diction  of  colour  that  recalls  the  triumphs  of  the  exe- 
cution of  music.  This  extraordinary  power  over  his  materials 
Rubens  was  about  to  display  suddenly  to  his  country  and  the 
world  within  a  couple  of  years  after  his  return. 

He  had  come  at  once  into  the  good  graces  of  the  rulers  of 
the  Netherlands,  the  Archduke  and  Archduchess,  Albert  and 
Isabella,  who,  prepared  by  strong  recommendations,  gave  him 
an  official  position  that  brought  him  standing  and  privileges 
and  some  little  income.  He  had  made  money  in  Italy  and  Spain, 
and  had  begun  the  remarkable  collection  of  works  of  art  which 
was  a  means  of  culture,  of  acquaintance  with  men  of  learning 
and  collectors,  and  later  still  a  fortune.  He  had  work  at  once  to 


RUBENS  141 

do  in  the  usual  way  of  court-painter,  with  portraits  and  with 
paintings  for  churches,  according  to  the  habit  of  the  time,  and 
especially  the  habits  of  his  country.  Paintings  were,  if  not  a 
necessity,  at  least  one  of  the  usual  manners  of  marking  public 
events  or  special  happenings  ;  and  they  were  placed  in  churches, 
which  made  their  appeal  to  all  more  lofty  and  more  natural. 

Thus,  then,  for  the  corporation  of  the  Church  of  StWalburga 
and  for  the  Guild  of  the  Arquebusiers  of  Antwerp,  he  painted 
between  1610  and  1612  the  great  paintings  of  the  *'  Raising  of 
the  Cross,"  and  "  The  Descent  from  the  Cross."  The  latter  is  the 
more  famous  picture :  perhaps  one  of  the  few  best-known  paint- 
ings in  the  world.  In  it  Rubens  fixed  the  type  of  the  subject, 
absorbing  in  his  work  the  impressions" received  from  earlier 
master's.  So  tliat  whatever  the  merits  of  others,  however  touch- 
ing, however  beautiful,  however  gi*eat,  one  feels  in  this  extraor- 
dinary achievement  a  result  which  can  never  be  dispensed  with. 
The  reminiscence  of  the  big  painting  placed  with  almost  no 
separation  on  the  high  cold  wall  is  that  of  a  large,  dark  space, 
almost  black,  down  which  slips  a  column  of  white — the  sheet 
that  carries  the  body  of  the  Christ  into  the  arms  of  loving  friends. 
All  their  grief  is  contained.  They  are  attending  to  those  last 
physical  duties  we  pay  to  the  departed ;  and  in  the  dramatic 
expression  of  their  feehng  this  exact  balance  is  most  beautifully 
and  truthfully  observed.  The  fear  of  a  fall  that  would  shock  the 


142  GREAT    MASTERS 

sense  of  reverence  to  the  dead  animates  all  the  figures,  each  one 
in  a  different  degree.  Thus  according  to  the  part  they  play  in 
the  simplest  of  all  dramas,  the  care  for  our  dead,  even  the 
workmen  who  detach  the  body  have  in  their  business  just  the 
proportionate  sympathy.  It  is  this  feeling  of  contained  emo- 
tion, difficult  and  rare  in  the  work  of  a  man  of  exuberant  feel- 
ings, that  distinguishes  this  painting  of  Rubens,  unless  we 
should  except  that  other  last  scene,  the  "  Death  Communioir 
of  St.  Francis,"  where  again  one  feels  the  contained  struggle 
against  outward  emotion  that  fills  the  attendants  who  help  the 
dying  Saint  in  a  last  homage  to  his  Redeemer.  '*  The  Descent 
from  the  Cross  "  is,  then,  a  wise  and  balanced  work,  composed 
of  marvellous  adjustments  of  planes  and  lines,  so  that  each 
motion,  each  fold,  even  the  out-balanced  foot  of  the  man  at  the 
arms  of  the  cross,  who  has  just  let  shp  from  his  shoulder  the 
body  of  the  Christ,  helps  to  form  a  pattern  as  ingeniously  com- 
bined as  that  of  any  ornamentation  or  brocade  meant  merely 
for  the  soothing  of  the  eye.  But  none  of  these  subtleties  are 
insisted  upon  to  the  detriment  of  the  dramatic  story;  and,  as  in 
very  many  of  Rubens's  paintings,  we  are  unaware  of  the  subtlety 
and  combination  of  lines  and  surfaces  which  make  the  artis- 
tic structure  of  what  seems  to  us  a  mere  rendering  of  nature, 
or  the  sweep  of  exuberant  and  poetic  passion.  For  Rubens  is 
really  calm  when  he  executes ;  he  is  like  the  conductor  of  a 


THE  DESCENT  FROM  THE  CROSS 

ANTWERP     CATHEDRAL 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BKAUN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


RUBENS  143 

great  orchestration  who  directs  the  expression  of  stormy  or 
gentle  emotion  according  to  a  scheme,  carefully  devised  and 
elaborated  by  a  mind  that  reduces  all  necessities  to  a  single 
effect. 

The  deep  religious  feeling  animating  the  great  painting  is 
not  that  of  a  mystical  or  of  a  self-inquiring  or  sentimental 
mind.  It  is  that  of  the  Rubens  we  know  in  all  the  diversity  of 
his  likings,  but  here  contained  in  manly  obedience  to  the  simple 
probabilities  of  such  a  scene  and  in  their  expression  in  a  single 
type.  Hence  the  great  standing  of  the  painting  and  the  perma- 
nence of  its  fame.  It  is  built  to  last  for  ever. 

"  The  Raising  of  the  Cross,"  painted  also  with  many  other 
works  during  these  four  glorious  years,  is  more  the  real  Rubens, 
letting  himself  flow  into  the  dramatic  situation,  and  using  the 
contrast  of  the  actual,  brutal,  cruel  splendour  of  nature,  whose 
glories  are  the  same  during  any  tragedy  opposed  to  the  call  of 
the  spirit  above  the  beastly  world  of  blind  force.  The  face  of 
the  Christ,  triumphant,  almost  joyful,  floats  above  the  sorrow 
and  the  cruelty  below  him.  Several  times  Rubens  has  opposed, 
but  never  so  simply  the  inner  tragedy  to  the  dramatic  pomp  of 
outside  circumstances.  Many  years  afterward  something  of  the 
kind  is  visible  in  the  "  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross  on  the  Way  to 
Calvary."  We  are  so  much  more  accustomed  to  a  more  arbi* 
trary  and  intentional  presentation  that  we  cannot  always  sym- 


144  GREAT    MASTERS 

pathise  with  the  largeness  of  view  belonging  to  this  simple, 
exuberant  nature  of  Rubens.  All  the  more  that  we  associate 
with  whatever  we  see  of  him  the  memories  of  many  other  works 
in  which  the  joy  of  life  is  spread  on  canvases  with  colour  and 
moving  line. 

The  two  great  pictures,  the  Descent  from  and  the  Raising  of 
the  Cross,  were  painted  during  the  first  happy  years  of  his  mar- 
riage with  Isabella  Brant,  which  was  celebrated  October  3, 1609. 
Everything  smiled  upon  Rubens :  family  affection,  goodwill, 
and  as  much  work  as  it  has  ever  been  possible  for  a  painter  to 
accomplish.  The  portrait  of  himself  and  wife  is  a  beautiful 
memento  of  young  success.  We  see  the  strong  body  of  a  gay, 
contented  cavalier  on  whose  wrist  rests,  in  the  fashion  of  the 
day,  the  arm  of  the  young  wife,  dressed  in  her  best,  and  with  a 
contented  and  intelligent  smile  that  tells  a  story  of  successful 
life.  The  hand  of  Rubens  lies  upon  his  sword,  which  is  the  cen- 
tral line  of  the  composition  ;  a  confidence  in  the  future  of  the 
battle  of  life  even  in  this  detail  of  costume. 

This  man  was  now  to  become  the  head  of  a  national  school 
and  to  fix  for  Flanders,  and  later  for  the  entire  world,  certain 
methods  of  the  art  of  painting — methods  not  entirely  his  own, 
methods  belonging  to  his  immediate  predecessors,  refined  and 
cultivated  by  the  influence  of  Italy,  but  based  upon  extreme 
good  sense  and  practical  possibilities. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST    AND    II  IS    FIRST    WIFE 
ISABELLA    BRANT 

ROYAL    PINAKOTHEK,    MUNICH 

PHOTOGRAPH     BY      H  A  X  F  S  T  A  E  X  G  L, 


RUBENS  145 

The  master  found  pupils  and  assistants  to  carry  out  his  many 
orders,  and  so  distributed  their  efforts  that  all  their  work  passes 
into  his  as  the  performer's  part  in  a  great  piece  of  music.  A 
master- workman,  himself,  and  of  a  kindly  and  generous  nature, 
he  remained  in  touch  with  all  his  workmen  and  assistants,  as  at 
other  moments  he  was  a  scholar  with  scholars,  and  a  gentleman 
of  rank  with  gentlemen. 

To  carry  out  the  commissions  which  came  upon  him  with  the 
increasing  prosperity  of  the  country  and  the  circumstances 
that  made  painting  a  necessity  of  trade,  he  formulated  a  method 
of  life  observed  with  accuracy.  He  rose  early,  devoted  some 
time  to  religious  observance,  worked  steadily  or  directed  his 
pupils  and  assistants  during  the  day,  rode  some  gallant  horse  in 
the  afternoon,  and  spent  the  evening  in  learned  and  profitable 
converse  or  correspondence.  The  gay  and  joyful  Rubens  of  the 
paintings  had  a  serious  side  of  desire  for  improvement  of  the 
mind.  Even  when  at  work  he  had  profitable  books  read  to  him. 
He  left  little  to  chance,  and  his  motto,  "  day  and  night  to  think 
of  it,"  explained  the  promptitude  and  decision  of  his  artistic 
execution.  But  he  was  specially  gifted  with  power  of  express- 
ing his  emotions  by  the  touch  and  sweep  of  his  hand.  In  that 
he  remains  a  marvel.  Without  this  special  gift  even  his  extreme 
order  and  sobriety  of  life  would  not  have  allowed  him  to  have 
to  his  account  the  tremendous  number  of  pictures,  which  varies 


146  GREAT    MASTERS 

between  twelve  hundred  and  fifteen  hundred ;  many  of  such 
dimensions  as  would  justify  years  of  work.  Traditions  or  leg- 
ends of  his  rapidity  and  facility  are  more  or  less  exact,  but 
they  all  mean  the  same  thing.  It  is  not  necessary  to  believe 
that  the  Kermesse  was  done  in  a  single  day,  but  it  must  have 
flowed  through  his  brush  with  a  rapidity  justifying  the  tradi- 
tion. He  had  the  supreme  advantage  of  having  a  taste  whose 
deficiencies  met  the  ordinary  taste  of  the  day.  In  our  own  time 
we  feel  the  redundancy  and  inflation  of  much  of  his  work,  es- 
pecially in  arrangement  or  ornament,  and  sometimes  a  similar 
defect  in  his  compositions.  But  wherever  that  may  be  in  his 
painting,  there  some  balance  of  colour  and  of  fight  redeems  the 
heaviness  of  form,  incorrection  of  drawing,  and  confusion  of 
attitudes.  His  drawing  is  a  mighty  one,  understood  in  a 
greater  way  than  that  of  a  small  accuracy.  He  is  a  master  of 
planes  and  of  distances,  and  his  study  of  sculpture  developed  a 
sense  too  often  lacking  in  what  is  called  good  drawing  :  that  of 
the  existence  of  the  other  side  of  things  which  we  do  not  see. 
His  years  of  orderly  and  abundant  work,  of  acquired  wealth, 
and  enjoyment  of  the  same  in  his  collections,  in  the  houses  that 
he  built,  in  the  goodwill  of  all  who  came  across  him,  were 
broken  into  by  the  death  of  Isabella  Brant. 

The  death  of  his  mother,  and  later  of  his  brother,  are  the 
one  inevitable  suffering   apparent  in   his   life.    A  few  vexa- 


PORTRAIT    OF    H  p]  L  E  N  A    FOTRMENT 

RYKS  MUSEUM.  AMSTERDAM 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  HANFSTAENGL 


RUBENS  147 

tions  in  his  employment  as  ambassador,  and  regret  at  the  con- 
tinuance of  wars,  are  the  only  other  thorns. 

No  other  women  seem  to  have  touched  his  life  but  Isabella 
and  the  other,  Helena  Fourment,  whom  he  married  a  few  years 
later,  no  longer  a  young  man.  He  was  then  fifty-three  years  old 
and  the  bride  only  sixteen,  about  the  age  of  his  oldest  son,  whose 
picture  with  his  younger  brother  is  at  Dresden.  In  the  wisdom 
of  his  career  this  seems  to  be  the  only  risk  that  he  ran.  The 
result  seems  to  have  been  a  happy  one.  He  had  suffered  from 
the  death  of  Isabella,  and  felt  the  loneliness  of  a  great  home 
once  adorned  by  a  woman.  For  it  is  one  of  the  marks  of  Rubens 
that  the  lives  of  these  two  women  mingled  absolutely  with  his. 
Always  and  everywhere  in  his  paintings  come  the  faces  and  the 
forms  of  Isabella  or  Helena.  Even  far  back  their  types  of  beauty 
seem  to  have  been  divined  by  him,  as  with  Leonardo  the  type 
of  Mona  Lisa  existed  in  the  mind  before  he  saw  her  in  the  body. 
Even  the  Magdalen  of  the  Descent,  so  expressive  of  Rubens's 
love  of  woman,  has  the  character  of  Helena  before  he  knew  her. 
We  know  all  of  her  beauty,  even  to  indiscretion. 

A  charming  picture,  known  as  *'The  Walk  in  the  Garden," 
represents  Rubens  and  Helena  in  the  early  period  of  their  mar- 
riage. The  artist's  truthfulness  shows  him  as  he  was  then ;  and 
his  maturity  contrasts  with  the  almost  childish  look  of  his  bride. 
But  though  Rubens  is  slightly  older,  thinner,  grayer,  and  bends 


148  GREAT    MASTERS 

in  a  way  that  indicates  the  shght  fatigue  of  Ufe,  he  is  still  a 
gallant,  handsome  cavalier  ;  and  in  the  picture  full  of  spring 
flowers  blooming,  and  all  nature  gay,  he  fits  sufficiently  well 
into  this  courtly  expression  of  pleasant  life. 

Rubens  had  just  returned  from  courts.  His  widowerhood 
was  much  filled  with  certain  embassies,  imposed  upon  him  by 
his  direct  sovereign,  the  Archduchess  Isabella,  who  relied  upon 
his  sincerity,  upon  his  acquaintance  with  many  people.  What- 
ever we  may  think  of  the  views  which  he  held,  or  of  his  diplo- 
matic career,  he  understood,  and  understood  in  a  handsome 
way,  the  wishes  of  his  masters  and  carried  them  out  faithfully. 
He  was  helped,  of  course,  by  his  grand  manner,  by  the  charm 
of  his  conversation,  and  his  culture,  and  perhaps  all  the  more 
by  that  influence  of  goodwill  which  so  wonderful  an  artist 
might  inspire  by  his  work.  It  was  not  a  mere  witty  saying  of 
his  when  in  his  English  embassy,  from  which  he  came  back 
knighted,  he  answered  a  courtier  who  had  found  him  painting 
and  inquired,  "  Does  His  Most  Catholic  Majesty's  representa- 
tive amuse  himself  with  painting?  "  with  this :  "  No,  the  artist 
sometimes  amuses  himself  with  diplomacy."  He,  thereby,  kept 
his  position  without  trenching  on  the  privileges  of  the  esoteric 
occupation.  That  was  a  danger  and  a  difficulty.  Once,  indeed, 
we  have  a  record  of  some  great  lord  (the  Duke  of  Arschoet) 
rebuking  Rubens  from  the  stand-point  of  certain  assumed  priv- 


RUBENS  149 

ileges  of  rank  (which  circumstances  Rubens  forgave  by  order). 
From  the  sovereigns  he  met  nothing  but  kindness  and  even 
favour,  though  Phihp  of  Spain  had  at  first  questioned  his  em- 
ployment as  envoy  from  Isabella,  for  the  two  reasons  which 
separate  the  artist  from  the  man  of  affairs.  In  the  first  place, 
the  artist  works  with  his  hands,  not  by  those  of  others  ;  and, 
moreover,  from  the  nature  of  his  life  his  fortune  cannot  be 
tied  down,  and,  as  Philip  put  it,  "  He  can  give  no  pledges." 

There  was  a  moment,  in  1620,  when  Rubens's  service  as  a 
political  correspondent  coincided  with  great  pictorial  work. 
That  was  when  Maria  de  Medici,  the  Queen-mother,  reconciled 
to  her  son,  Louis  XIII.  of  France,  proposed  to  adorn  her  pal- 
ace, the  Luxembourg,  with  great  paintings,  which  might,  ac- 
cprding  to  the  spirit  of  the  time,  record  in  a  splendid  way  the 
events  of  her  life.  Rubens  was  recommended  by  the  ambassa- 
dor of  Albert  and  Isabella  to  the  Queen-mother,  sister  of  that 
Duchess  of  Mantua  whose  husband  had  been  the  first  patron 
and  master  of  Rubens.  During  the  several  years  that  Rubens 
was  in  Paris  for  the  preparation,  or  the  fitting  of  the  work,  he 
came  into  relations  with  the  political  managers  of  the  time  ; 
and  later,  when  again  the  Queen  broke  with  her  son  and  came 
again  to  Belgium,  he  served  her  for  a  time  as  intermediary 
in  the  singularly  complicated  circumstances  of  quarrels,  which 
this  brief  account  can  only  hint  at.  The  great  paintings  planned 


150  GREAT    MASTERS 

by  him,  and  in  part  executed  by  his  pupils,  still  adorn  the 
French  capital. 

They  are  magnificent  examples  of  Rubens's  eloquence  of  ora- 
tory, if  one  can  use  the  words  for  the  art  of  painting  ;  splendid 
discourses  on  the  history  of  the  Queen,  in  which  allegory,  and 
fiction,  and  reality  combine  to  cover  up  facts  in  courtly  state- 
ments. These  splendid  conceptions,  important  enough  to  fill  the 
life  of  any  ordinary  painter,  show  in  the  analysis  of  some  of 
their  methods  some  of  the  main  characters  of  his  art,  and  how, 
like  all  great  artists,  he  used  difficulties  as  a  means  of  success. 
With  him  the  use  of  the  portrait,  the  rendering  of  a  person 
seen,  is  one  of  his  manners  of  completing  the  story  of  his  pic- 
tures, of  introducing  enough  reality  to  make  us  accept  easily 
the  improbable  parts  of  his  theatrical  arrangement.  All  was 
good  that  came  into  his  net,  and  commonplace  characters 
serve  to  increase  the  splendour  of  the  tableau.  All  of  these 
people,  imaginary  or  real,  live  with  a  special  life,  and  in  a  man- 
ner which  is  his.  They  are  all  animated,  courageous,  splendid, 
triumphant,  and  seen  at  a  distance,  as  it  were,  in  the  function 
of  which  they  are  part.  I  said  all,  but  occasionally  some  char- 
acter, prominently  necessary,  as  with  Maria  de  Medici  her- 
self, steps  out  from  the  crowd,  as  in  the  theatre  the  main 
performers  attract  our  principal  attention.  In  the  meaning 
of  these  paintings,  therefore,  in  their  intention,  in  their  right 


C  Q 

F^  Pi 

O  O 

^  '^' 

C  ^ 

Pi  < 

<  O 

C  ►J 


RUBENS  151 

solution,  Rubens  was  but  using  the  methods  of  all  his 
compositions. 

In  this  habit  of  painting  portraits,  Rubens  could  easily  ob- 
tain the  good  graces  of  the  courtiers  or  princes  whom  he  had 
to  meet.  This  was  but  an  extension  of  his  first  training  in  the 
court  of  Mantua.  Later,  when  for  really  important  business, 
the  Archduchess  Isabella  sends  him  to  Spain,  to  inform  the 
King  more  closely  than  by  correspondence,  Phihp  is  painted 
and  has  paintings  made  for  him,  and  is  charmed  by  the  char- 
acter and  manners  of  the  accomplished  artist.  For  Philip  was  a 
lover  of  art,  and  under  his  external  woodenness  a  lover  of  all 
that  was  pleasant.  Another  lover  of  art,  of  different  complex- 
ion in  mind  and  morals,  Charles  I.  of  England,  also  felt  the 
charm  of  Rubens  as  ambassador. 

He  had  been  chosen  by  the  Prime  Minister,  Ohv^arez,  to  as- 
certain the  intentions  of  England,  then  ready  to  treat  with 
France,  and  was  despatched  as  envoy,  having  been  made  sec- 
retary of  the  privy  council  of  the  Netherlands  on  the  29th  of 
April,  1629.  He  had  already,  of  necessity,  relations  with  Eng- 
land, and  had  been  introduced  to  the  questions  pending  be- 
tween the  countries  nine  years  before,  in  Paris.  There  he 
gained  the  goodwill  of  the  ill-fated  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
with  whom  he  had  important  business  concerning  pictures, 
;ind  works  of  art  ;   for  the  collections  of  Master  Rubens  of 


152  GREAT    MASTERS 

Antwerp  numbered  besides  antiques  of  every  kind,  Titians, 
Tintorettos,  Veroneses,  Raphaels,  and,  none  the  less,  paintings 
by  himself.  This  fortune  he  exchanged  for  money :  a  great 
sum  in  those  days,  ten  thousand  pounds  sterling. 

One  would  like  to  linger  in  the  charming  memory  of  this 
picturesque  character,  at  a  moment  suffused  with  the  light  oi 
the  romance  of  history.  Rubens  of  Antwerp  became  Sir  Pete  ? 
Paul  Rubens  in  England ;  and  however  little  he  may  have 
done  under  most  adverse  circumstances  to  forward  that  peace 
which  was  his  one  desire,  he  laid  the  foundation  of  English 
art.  Most  of  th§  principles,  many  of  the  beautiful  habits  of 
painting  represented  by  Rubens  have  lived  along  in  England. 
One  needs  but  to  think  of  Reynolds,  of  Gainsborough,  of 
Lawrence.  His  disposition  and  treatment  of  the  portrait  found 
a  fortunate  soil. 

But  that  higher  disposition  of  the  mind,  that  personal  eleva- 
tion, was  not  transmitted.  The  painter  and  the  sculptor  are 
more  usually  affected  by  life  around  them  ;  they  cannot  re- 
treat as  easily  as  the  poet  within  the  ivory  tower  of  higher 
thought.  Rubens  returned  with  honours,  but  weary  of  the  life 
of  courts.  Once  more  he  made  a  brief  and  ineffectual  diplo- 
matic excursion  into  Holland. 

His  second  marriage  turned  out  as  fortunate  as  his  first. 
He  had  wealth,  position,  beautiful  children,  hosts  of  friends, 


RUBENS  153 

and  now  time  to  devote  to  that  "  sweetest  art  of  painting," 
which  was  his  business,  his  trade,  and  his  refuge.  As  he  with- 
drew from  more  active  life  he  represented  that  outside  hfe 
with  greater  joy.  Enchanted  views  of  the  joy  of  Hfe  (the  Gar- 
den of  Love,  etc.),  expressed  in  terms  of  mythology  (the 
Diana  Returning  from  the  Chase),  landscapes  whose  half-arti- 
ficial combinations  rival  the  more  realistic  pictures  of  later 
men  ;  portraits,  of  course  ;  great  festal  decorations,  some  great 
religious  paintings,  and  even,  and  especially,  a  few  most  as- 
tounding representations  of  rural  or  boorish  enjoyment,  ani- 
mated by  a  poetry  that  lifts  them  ir^to  the  rank  of  ideals, 
filled  these  later  years.  Everywhere,  on  any  sort  of  excuse, 
comes  in  the  reminiscence  of  Helena.  Even  when  she  is  not 
distinctly  visible,  some  bloom  of  youth  or  happiness  recalling 
her  passes  into  the  images  of  others.  He  has  painted  her  in  al- 
lusion, and  he  has  also  painted  her  almost  indiscreetly  as  por- 
trait. One  of  the  beautiful  ones  is  that  of  himself,  of  her,  and 
of  their  little  girl. 

His  relations  with  learned  men  continued,  and  of  course  his 
kindly  behaviour  with  other  artists,  either  those  whom  he  em- 
ployed or  whom  he  encouraged.  He  was  surrounded  by  other 
masters  whose  help  was  an  honour.  The  greatest  of  these,  of 
course,  is  Van  Dyck,  unexplainable  without  him,  whose  cre- 
ation is  a  part  of  Rubens 's  great  glory. 


154  GREAT    MASTERS 

The  amount  of  work  which  he  accepted  must  have  produced 
some  strain  resulting  in  an  illness  unexpected  in  such  a  re- 
markable body.  He  bore  the  suffering  of  his  infirmities  with 
courage  and  with  continued  devotion  to  his  work.  In  this  pas- 
sage through  illness  to  death,  any  more  than  in  his  most  joy- 
ous moments,  there  is  no  sign  of  languor  or  of  sadness.  That  is 
his  mark. 

He  has  left  a  great,  healthy,  joyous  place  in  the  history  of 
painting — a  place  and  position  so  important  that  we  can  think 
of  him  alongside  of  Michelangelo  himself  The  intensity  that 
marks  either  Michelangelo  or  Rembrandt  is  not  his ;  but  the 
story  of  his  successful  life  accounts  for  this  absence  of  shadow. 
And  even  his  portrait  indicates  an  eye  that  saw  clearly,  as  if  in 
a  mirror,  but  which  was  not  accustomed  to  penetrate  below  the 
splendid  surfaces  which  he  liked.  The  feeling,  disengaged  from 
his  work,  is  difficult  to  trace  to  any  part  or  any  detail  ;  it  must 
reside  in  that  imponderable  element,  the  simple  loftiness  of  the 
man's  mind.  That  was  recognised  amply  during  his  life,  and  he 
was  seen  almost  as  he  is  to-day.  With  him,  in  him,  and" in  Van 
Dyck,  a  year  later,  died  the  art  of  the  Netherlands.  It  had  been 
glorious  but  national ;  he  made  it  universal. 

His  end  came  rather  suddenly  on  the  30th  of  May,  1640. 
With  his  usual  prudence  and  provision  he  had  made  all  proper 
dispositions  for  his  family  by  will.  Nor  was  he  otherwise  un- 


RUBENS  155 

ready.  One  of  his  last  letters  to  the  Flemish  sculptor,  Du- 
quesnoy,  desires  him  to  return  "  before  his  own  eyes  close 
for  ever." 

He  lies  in  the  family  chapel  of  St.  James,  where  in  1642  was 
placed  the  painting  called  St.  George,  by  a  touching  legend 
supposed  to  represent  the  types  of  himself,  his  father  and 
mother,  his  two  wives,  and  their  children.  It  would  be  pleasant 
to  believe  the  tradition,  the  painting  is  so  beautiful,  so  triumph- 
ant ;  such  a  romance  of  portraits,  and  such  a  dream  of  happy, 
self-sufficient,  and  beautiful  family  life. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 

CAPITOLINE    GALLERY,    ROME 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     ANDERSON 


VELASQUEZ 


VELASQUEZ 


In  1605,  an  English  ambassador,  with  an  escort  of  six  hundred 
attendants,  entered  ValladoHd  to  arrange  for  a  treaty  of  peace, 
and  to  present  the  congratulations  of  King  James  to  the  King 
of  Spain,  on  the  birth  of  his  son  who  was  to  be  Philip  the 
Fourth,  immortal  for  us  through  the  paintings  of  Velasquez. 
That  same  spring  Cervantes  pubhshed  the  first  part  of  "  Don 
Quixote,"  in  which  famous  book  appear  for  all  time  the  con- 
trasts which  declare  in  the  Spaniard  a  singular  and  courageous 
idealism  and  the  love  of  a  contradictory  reality  which  was  to 
become  the  key-note  of  the  art  of  Spain.  The  Knight-Errant 
and  Sancho  Panza  resume  in  the  immortal  story  the  heroic 
Spain  of  the  past,  the  Spain  of  adventure  and  conquest,  and 
the  more  sober  payment  for  the  same,  which  was  to  come.  The 
power  and  wealth  of  Spain  were  still  pre-eminent.  The  gold  of 
America  and  the  treasures  of  the  East  came  there,  and  Seville 
was  a  capital  for  the  merchants  of  the  world.  There  were  colo- 
nies of  foreign  traders,  German,  Flemish,  French,  and  Italian  ; 
and  the  city  was  both  a  great  mart  and  a  very  religious 
city,  full  of  churches  and  good  deeds,  and  money  spent  upon 


160  GREAT    MASTERS 

them  ;  and  it  kept  from  earlier  time  a  something  of  oriental 
mark,  both  in  its  buildings,  its  habits  of  life,  and  those  forms  of 
external  splendour,  which  now  fill  our  museums. 

Here  in  1599,  six  years  before  Philip  IV.,  was  born  Diego 
Rodriguez  de  Silva  y  Velasquez.  His  father  was  Juan  Rodriguez 
de  Silva,  the  son  of  a  Portuguese  ;  and  his  mother,  Geronima 
Velasquez,  daughter  of  a  SeviUian  gentleman.  The  mother's 
name  has  remained.  According  to  Spanish  custom  the  painter 
bore  the  double  name.  Reverse  of  fortune  had  brought  the 
grandfather,  the  Portuguese  gentleman,  to  Spain.  The  family 
were  in  sufficiently  good  circumstances  to  allow  the  boy,  Diego, 
who  early  showed  a  wish  in  that  direction,  to  study  for  the 
career  of  painter.  "  The  boy  was  nurtured,"  says  one  of  his 
biographers,  "  on  the  milk  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord."  He  attended 
school,  where  he  did  well,  and  learned  Latin  early  in  life.  The 
family  may  have  felt  the  usual  prejudices,  then  very  strong, 
against  a  gentleman's  taking  up  the  trade  of  a  painter,  but  at  a 
very  early  age,  at  thirteen,  the  boy  was  already  a  student  of 
Herrera,  traditionally  as  fierce  in  Ufe  as  he  seems  to  us  yet  to- 
day in  his  paintings. 

The  question  of  the  realm  of  early  influences  is  too  delicate 
a  point  to  decide.  It  may  or  may  not  be  that  of  the  one  year 
under  Herrera,  Velasquez  retained  permanent  impressions.  The 
anxiety  to  fix  some  beginnings  of  impressions  for  such  a  great 


PHOTOGRAPH     B 


PHILIP    IV. 

THE    PRADO,    MADRID 

RAUN,      CLEMENT 


VELASQUEZ  161 

result  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  for  the  next  five  years  he 
studied  under  Pacheco,  a  learned,  but  indifferent  painter,  who 
gave  him,  however,  instruction  and  affectionate  interest,  and 
married  him  to  his  daughter,  J  nana  de  Miranda,  at  the  end  of 
these  five  years.  Rubens  has  told  us  what  he  thought  of  the 
painters  about  the  court  of  Spain.  He  speaks  of  "  the  miserable 
insufficiency  and  negligence  of  these  painters,  and  of  their  poor 
manner  of  work."  "  Mine,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  is  absolutely 
different  from  these.  Please  God  I  may  never  be  like  them." 
He  also  adds :  "  I  am  surprised  at  the  quality  and  the  quantity 
of  the  paintings  of  the  older  masters,  that  is  to  say :  of  the 
Raphaels,  Titians,  and  such.  But  as  to  the  modern,  there  is  not 
a  single  one  that  has  any  value."  This  was  in  1603,  during  Ru-  * 
bens's  first  voyage  to  Spain,  and  he  had  not  visited  other  parts 
of  Spain  where  already  there  were  examples  enough  to  influ- 
ence the  mind  of  a  Velasquez,  and  where,  already,  the  pupil  of 
Titian,  El  Greco,  had  brought  the  lessons  and  influence  of 
Venice.  The  teaching  of  Pacheco  must  have  been  of  value,  and 
he  certainly,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  contributed  in 
every  manner  to  the  success  of  his  favourite  pupil.  And  yet, 
companionship  of  such  fellow-students  as  Zurbaran  and  Cano 
would  be  enough  for  the  helping  of  any  artistic  mind.  They, 
and  a  few  others,  are  lost  to  us  outsiders  in  the  superiority  of 
Velasquez  ;  but  they  are  a  part  of  the  Spanish  movement,  of 


162  GREAT    MASTERS 

the  intense  desire  to  express  life  in  all  its  reality.  Cano,  the 
man  who  carved  the  St.  Francis,  saw  with  a  vision  not  so  dif- 
ferent from  Velasquez,  even  if  a  something  more  passionate, 
more  spiritual,  has  touched  for  once  the  sculptor's  vision  of  ordi- 
nary monkish  life.  Whether  the  young  man  derived  more  or 
less  profit  from  the  direct  teaching  of  his  master,  Pacheco,  he 
probably  received  through  admittance  to  his  house  that  form  of 
education  which  carries  throughout  life.  There  came  the  artists, 
the  learned  and  literary  men,  poets  of  the  new  school,  and  occa- 
sional great  gentlemen  who  owned  paintings,  and  statues,  and 
books,  and  whose  manners  must  have  prepared  for  a  future  resi- 
dence in  courts  this  man  who  was  to  live  alongside  of  the  King, 
the  representative  of  the  strictest  etiquette  in  the  world. 
Pacheco  has  told  us  that  he  read  much,  and  studied  in  books 
the  "proportions"  and  the  anatomy  of  Albert  Diirer  and  Ve- 
sale ;  perspective  and  physiognomy  in  Porta  and  Barbaro ; 
architecture  in  Vitruvius  and  Vignola,  not  forgetting  the  arith- 
metic of  Moya,  and  geometry  according  to  Euclid ;  and  so  with 
works  on  the  history  and  theory  of  art,  and  perhaps  even  theol- 
ogy, in  which  his  father-in-law  was  proud  to  be  proficient.  Bet- 
ter still,  his  father-in-law  gave  him  letters  for  the  capital, 
Madrid,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  influential  per- 
sons, and  was  even  proposed  for  the  portrait  of  the  young 
King. 


Pi  K 

I-.    O 


VELASQUEZ  163 

But  Philip  had  not  yet,  in  the  soHtariness  of  regal  splendour, 
learned  to  look  upon  this  as  an  amusement.  That  was  for  a 
later  day.  Velasquez  saw  the  great  paintings  belonging  to  the 
crown,  whose  value  had  impressed  the  great  Rubens.  Mean- 
while, on  his  return  to  Seville,  he  must  have  painted  some  of 
the  well-known  realistic  studies  which  we  know.  I  use  the  word 
studies,  for  notwithstanding  their  extraordinary  success,  and 
even  that  they  were  occasionally  paintings  of  great  subjects 
their  methods  are  those  of  the  student.  Occasionally  the  more 
difficult  problem  is  introduced  as  an  accessory,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  picture  called  "  Christ  in  the  House  of  Martha,"  which  is 
in  the  National  Gallery.  There  the  picture  is  merely  that  of  a 
kitchen-maid  preparing  food  under  the  direction  of  an  older 
woman  ;  there  are  portraits  of  fish,  and  eggs,  and  so  forth,  while 
in  the  background,  through  a  window  or  opening  in  the  wall, 
we  see  the  Saviour,  seated,  addressing  Martha,  who  stands,  and 
Mary  kneeling  before  him.  Notwithstanding  the  formal  study 
of  this  background  event,  the  masterly  apprehension  of  ordi- 
nary truth  strikes  one  in  the  attitude  of  the  Saviour  and  the 
two  women.  It  is  not  necessary  to  know  the  story  to  under- 
stand what  it  must  mean  :  the  revered  teacher,  the  woman  ab- 
sorbed in  his  personality,  and  the  other  woman  more  attentive 
to  the  needs  of  every  day.  The  picture  is  one  of  the  kind  that 
was  current  at  the  time :  what  the  Spaniards  called  bodego7ies, 


164  GREAT    MASTERS 

pictures  of  still  life,  such  as  we  think  are  fit  for  the  rooms 
where  meals  are  taken. 

A  few  years  later,  in  March,  1623,  one  of  his  friends  in  Ma- 
drid brought  from  the  all-powerful  minister,  Olivarez,  an  order 
for  the  young  artist  to  come  to  Madrid,  his  expenses  paid. 
Velasquez  went  at  once,  accompanied  by  his  mulatto  slave, 
Juan  Pareja,  whom  he  had  used  as  a  model  over  and  over 
again,  and  who  became  later  a  pupil  of  sufficient  excellence  to 
recall  his  master,  and  be,  in  a  few  cases,  confused  with  him.  In 
the  hospitable  house  of  his  friend  Fonseca  he  painted  a  portrait, 
which,  as  soon  as  done,  was  carried  to  the  palace  by  a  young 
nobleman,  a  son  of  a  chamberlain  of  one  of  the  princes.  An 
hour  later  that  prince  had  seen  it  and  the  King  and  the  King  s 
brother  and  the  great  lords,  and  Velasquez  had  entered  the 
career  by  which  we  know  him.  The  King,  who  was  to  favour 
our  painter,  and  whose  name  is  carried  for  the  most  of  us 
through  Velasquez's  portraits,  was  fond  of  art  and,  indeed, 
painted,  himself  Only  one  picture,  perhaps,  remains  to  our 
knowledge,  though  we  have  the  name  of  several.  He  is  said  to 
have  written  as  good  Spanish  as  any  noble  or  any  commoner. 
He  composed  plays  which  perhaps  remain  under  other  names  ; 
these  for  the  amusement  of  the  court.  He  was  a  splendid  horse- 
man and  a  great  hunter.  He  was  kindly,  and  in  escaping  from 
the  iron  pressure  of  formality  and  the  enormous  business  of 


VELASQUEZ  165 

such  an  empire,  too  much  devoted  to  pleasure  for  a  man  who 
had  excellent  qualities.  Coming  very  early  to  this  gigantic  suc- 
cession, his  minister,  the  great  Count-Duke  Olivarez,  was  able 
to  keep  an  ascendancy  fatal  in  all  to  the  fortunes  of  Spain.  His 
evil  genius  plotted  for  the  universal  sway  of  Spain  and  left  her 
on  the  road  of  decrepitude.  Personally,  he  was  hard-working, 
sober  to  an  astonishing  degree,  interested  in  art  and  literature 
for  the  benefit  of  his  master,  and  above  corruption  through  the 
desire  of  wealth.  He,  as  well  as  the  King,  steadily  furthered  the 
fortune  of  Velasquez,  and  when  he  fell  at  last,  the  painter  was 
one  of  the  few  who  insisted  upon  testifying  to  his  gratitude. 
These  two  men  are.  part  of  the  life  of  Velasquez  ;  for  thirty- 
seven  years  Velasquez  painted  the  King  in  such  a  way  that  the 
two  names  are  inseparable,  and  in  the  history  made  by  art,  the 
King  still  holds  his  place  through  the  brush-work  of  his  servant, 
the  painter.  The  heavy  but  gentle  face  we  follow  from  boyhood 
to  age.  We  all  know  the  erect  and  stately  form,  naturally  deli- 
cate, kept  healthy  through  exercise,  the  beautiful  seat  in  the 
saddle,  the  hands  equally  elegant,  whether  holding  a  petition 
or  the  bridle  of  a  curveting  horse,  and  beneath  the  externals 
shown  by  the  artist,  who  wished  to  see  no  farther  than  the  eye, 
a  something  that  we  know  to  be  the  mark  of  fate,  the  closing 
of  a  long  descent.  Of  the  Count-Duke  we  have  fewer  represen- 
tations, but  they  also  will  never  be  forgotten.  They  represent 


166  GREAT    MASTERS 

the  opposite  nature  :  a  violent  temperament,  an  obstinacy 
which  is  fiery,  perhaps  a  certain  vindictive  and  quarrelsome 
suggestion. 

It  would  be  a  delight  to  be  able  to  add  to  these  portraits  the 
lost  one  of  Charles  the  First  of  England,  which  we  know  that 
Velasquez  painted.*  It  would  be  valuable  to  have  the  testimony 
of  that  impartial  eye  to  a  more  everyday  sight  of  the  romantic 
figure,  immortalised  by  the  noble  manner  of  Van  Dyck.  The 
occasion  itself  is  a  romance  :  that  of  the  sudden  visit  of  Charles 
with  Buckingham  to  Spain  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  Spanish 
bride.  The  disguised  prince  and  his  friend,  with  false  beards, 
passed  unknown  through  France  into  Spain,  and  dallied  there 
for  months  in  the  complications  of  the  impossible  attempt  to 
combine  two  contrary  political  situations.  The  difficulty  was 
made  none  the  less  by  the  intriguing  characters  of  the  two  royal 
favourites,  both  vain  and  hating  each  other — so  that  the  result 
remains  within  our  domain  of  art :  the  bringing  back  by  Charles 
of  Correggio's  "  Antiope,"  and  other  paintings,  and  his  learning 
to  know,  and  later  to  possess,  works  of  art  which  for  a  time 
enriched  England. 

Velasquez  then  was  painting  for  the  King.  He  had  obtained 
a  position  of  painter  to  the  King,  with  a  derisively  small  salary, 
but  with  advantages  much  envied ;  so  much  so  that  we  have 

*  Or  sketched. 


M  (E  N  I  P  P  U  S 

THE      P  R  A  D  O  .     MADRID 

PHOTOGRAPH      BY      BR  A  t'  X  ,      f  L  E  M  K  N  T 


VELASQUEZ  167 

the  record  of  the  jealous  criticisms  of  fellow- artists  attached  to 
the  court,  to  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  generous  and  kind, 
but  who  were  annoyed  by  the  rising  star.  There  is  a  story  that 
the  King  brought  up  to  Velasquez  that  it  was  said  of  him  that 
heads  were  all  that  he  could  paint.  To  which  the  artist  replied, 
unmoved,  "  JNIuch  honour  they  do  me.  I  know  of  no  one  capa- 
ble of  doing  it."  The  story  is  given  as  a  preface  to  a  competi- 
tion for  an  historical  painting  in  which  Velasquez  triumphed. 
The  painting  is  lost,  a  great  loss,  not  only  because  of  the  pos- 
sible value  of  the  work  as  art,  but  because  the  student  would 
wish  to  know  how  Velasquez,  now  in  the  first  enjoyment  of 
his  powers,  would  treat  an  historical  subject.  We  have  a  descrip- 
tion which  scarcely  helps  us.  Its  subject  was  a  glorification  of 
the  expulsion  of  the  descendants  of  the  Moors  from  Spain  :  to 
us  of  to-day,  a  disgraceful  and  harmful  act,  not  to  be  immor- 
talised by  the  brush  of  the  gentle  and  sincere  artist,  delightful 
to  all  men.  But  at  all  times,  as  even  at  this  very  moment,  the 
wish  to  be  "  thorough  "  in  politics  causes  strange  and  useless 
cruelties  ;  the  advantages  of  expelling  from  a  nation  those  of  a 
different  and  opposing  race  must  have  been  obvious  long  ago 
as  they  are  to-day.  And  national  pride  may  have  justified 
Velasquez  as  it  has  the  writers  of  England  for  many  centuries. 
In  reality,  Velasquez,  at  that  time  and  at  all  others,  is  not  paint- 
ing for  a  public.  His  one  public  is  the  King,  more  especially  in 


168  GREAT    MASTERS 

his  case  perhaps  than  in  any  other's,  for  in  the  long  record  of  the 
succeeding  years  we  know  that  the  King  made  a  practice  of 
visiting  Velasquez  at  his  work,  spending  much  time  with  him, 
getting,  even  out  of  the  bore  of  posing,  a  relief  from  still 
greater  tediousness.  Thus  he  suggested  subjects  ;  and  perhaps 
the  explanation  of  the  choice  of  many  of  the  works  of  Velas- 
quez, even  to  their  arrangement,  may  be  due  to  this  relation  of 
a  patron  who  might  be  an  adviser,  as  well  as  a  friendly  visitor. 
It  might  be  the  King  who  suggested  or  wished,  but  the  rela- 
tion might  not  be  different  from  that  of  the  friendly  habitu^ 
of  the  studio.  And  if  it  be  true  that  the  King  understood  any- 
thing of  the  practice  of  the  art  of  painting,  one  cannot  imagine 
that  even  in  hunting  he  could  have  had  so  complete  an  amuse- 
ment as  in  watching  the  brush  of  the  most  skilful  painter  that 
ever  lived. 

Velasquez  was  not  at  this  moment  as  skilful  as  he  was  to 
become.  That  is  to  say,  that  later  the  mystery  of  the  execution 
becomes  almost  an  art  in  itself  It  varies  with  the  subject,  the 
size,  the  spaces,  the  reasons  for  definite  or  indefinite  work.  Al- 
ready it  provoked,  as  we  have  seen,  the  jealousy  of  men  who, 
trained  in  academic  studies,  wished  to  be  able  to  analyse  by 
rule  the  different  divisions  of  the  success  they  saw  ;  what  was 
due  to  line,  and  what  was  due  to  drawing,  and  what  was  due 
to  colour,  and  the  other  arbitrary  divisions  which  help  us  to  an- 


VELASQUEZ  169 

alyse  that  general  nature  in  which  they  exist  or  are  blended, 
regardless  of  mankind.  Thus,  Carducho,  the  Florentine  court- 
painter,  also :  "  Who  has  ever  painted,  and  painted  so  well,  as 
this  monster  of  wit  and  talent,  almost  without  rules,  instruc- 
tion, studies,  merely  with  the  art  of  his  genius,  and  nature  be- 
fore his  eyes? "  Thus,  the  tendency  to  disbelieve  in  any  form  of 
study  whose  mechanism  is  not  our  own.  We,  on  the  contrary, 
recognise,  as  we  know  by  record,  that  Velasquez  had  studied 
all  his  young  life,  and,  indeed,  those  early  paintings,  however 
successful,  are  studies,  as  the  joining  of  their  parts  indicates. 
Even  the  masterpiece  of  the  "  Drunkards  "  is  somewhat  put  to- 
gether as  a  problem.  This  is  one  of  the  realistic  forms  of  paint- 
ing which  Carducho  abhorred.  Traditionally,  it  was  asked  for 
by  Philip,  and  though  later,  very  much  later,  he  paints  the  fa- 
mous dwarfs,  buffoons,  and  idiots,  or  the  two  vagabonds,  whom 
he  has  called  *'  iEsop  ' '  and  "  Moenippus,"  he  never  again 
paints  a  subject  which  might  imply  either  a  liking  or  a  tolera- 
tion that  might  turn  into  vice.  For  the  "  Drunkards,"  as  the 
Spanish  call  them,  are  not  such  a  bad  lot;  they  recall  the 
Spanish  stories  of  "  picaresque "  life,  'tis  true ;  they  invest  it 
with  a  reality  which  is  almost  that  of  to-day  ;  but  as  compared 
with  the  representation  of  Northern  fondness  for  drink,  they 
are  almost  poetic.  And  it  may  be  that  in  the  painter's  mind 
they  were  but  a  realistic  interpretation  of  the  joys  of  Bacchus 


170  GREAT    MASTERS 

and  of  classic  revelry.  We  must  never  forget  the  union  of  Don 
Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza.  This  is  supposed  to  be  the  painter's 
last  work  just  before  his  first  voyage  into  Italy,  to  which  the 
King  gave  his  consent,  and  for  which  he  gave  as  travelling  ex- 
penses precisely  four  hundred  ducats.  We  are  told  that  he  was 
much  pleased  with  the  work,  and  it  is  perhaps  the  painting  of 
Bacchus  "  done  for  the  service  of  His  Majesty  "  for  which  he 
received  one  hundred  ducats  of  that  sum.  Just  then  Velasquez 
had  met  the  great  Rubens,  who  had  come  upon  his  embassy, 
and  who  certainly  would  have  influenced  him  toward  the  Ital- 
ian journey  which  was  one  of  the  dreams  of  every  cultured 
Spaniard.  We  know  that  they  saw  each  other  ;  that  Rubens  was 
pleased  with  the  young  Spaniard,  and  especially  with  his  ex- 
treme modesty.  They  went  together  to  the  great  palace  in  the 
desert,  the  Escurial ;  and  we  have  Rubens's  record  of  the  trip, 
and,  indeed,  but  not  finished  by  him,  a  sketch  of  the  desert  land- 
scape he  describes.  "  The  range,"  he  writes,  "  is  high,  steep,  diffi- 
cult to  climb  and  descend  ;  we  saw  the  clouds  far  below  us  with 
the  clear  and  bright  sky  above.  On  the  summit,  a  huge  cross, 
easily  distinguished  from  Madrid,  and  the  small  church  of  St. 
John,  where  a  recluse  lives.  .  .  .  We  saw  much  red  deer."  The 
picture  of  it  went  to  England  and  is  probably  the  one  at  Long- 
ford. There  is  a  solitary  figure  of  a  monk,  a  wooden  cross,  a 
stag  running  rapidly,  gray  clouds,  and  below,  a  gigantic  palace 


.ESOP    (DETAIL) 

THE    PRADO,    MADRID 
PHOTOURAPH      BY     BRAUN,     CLEMENT     &     CO 


VELASQUEZ  171 

monastery.  Something  has  been  written  of  the  influence  of  Ru- 
bens upon  Velasquez  through  this  short  intercourse,  when  Ve- 
lasquez may  have  seen  the  other  great  man  paint,  with  as- 
tounding ease,  the  pictures  that  mark  his  stay  in  Spain.  But 
that  must  be  a  fallacy  ;  the  great  picture  of  the  "  Drunkards  " 
was  already  painted  ;  the  next  ones  done  in  Italy  keep  the  same 
path  of  almost  cruel  realism.  Nothing  in  colour  suggests  Flan- 
ders, and  never,  indeed,  is  Velasquez  freer  than  after  meeting 
Rubens.  In  the  meeting  of  men  who  feel  that  they  each  have 
a  part  to  play,  the  result  would  more  reasonably  be  the  increas- 
ing of  each  one's  personality,  whether  or  no  each  one  admires 
the  other's  scope,  the  other's  art.  When,  later,  Velasquez  saw 
the  work  of  El  Greco,  he  may  have  taken  a  lesson  therefrom, 
and  seen  how  Venice  was  recalled  in  a  way  that  could  be  used 
by  him,  and  be  encouraged  all  the  more  in  his  own  manner 
and  handling,  which,  like  the  Greek's,  varies  with  the  matter 
in  hand. 

Olivarez  had  supplemented  the  rather  meagre  payments  of  the 
King,  and  Velasquez  sailed  for  Italy,  accompanying  the  great 
General  Ambrosio  Spinola,  who  was  going  to  take  command 
for  Spain  in  Italy.  Later,  and  after  his  death,  Velasquez  has 
painted  him  in  the  great  picture  of  "  The  Lances,"  or  "  The 
Surrender  of  Breda,"  where  he  receives  with  a  courtesy,  typical 
of  all  chivalry,  the  keys  of  the  city  from  Justin  of  Nassau. 


172  GREAT    MASTERS 

Besides  money,  Velasquez  received  from  Olivarez  many  and 
special  letters  of  recommendation  to  all  Spanish  agents  in  Italy  ; 
so  many,  and  so  pressing,  as  to  have  made  the  Italians  suspect 
him  of  a  diplomatic  mission.  Ofthis,  however,  we  have  no  trace. 
His  slave  and  pupil,  Pareja,  was  with  him,  and  the  pilgrims  of 
art  landed  in  Venice  and  lodged  with  the  Ambassador  of  Spain. 
The  art  of  Venice  was  declining  into  Eesthetics.  As  usual  the 
admirers  of  manners  (manierosi)  marked  the  evil  moment 
when  the  love  of  nature  has  begun  to  become  the  property  of 
pupils.  There  was  nothing  to  learn  by  Velasquez,  except  from 
the  dead,  who  were  not  responsible  for  their  imitators.  We  know 
that  he  copied,  and  we  know  that  he  copied  with  admiration, 
Tintoretto.  To  the  unprepared  mind,  the  row  of  spears  in 
Tintoretto's  wonderful  "Crucifixion"  recalls  suddenly  that 
other  row  of  spears  which  gives  its  other  name,  "  The  Lances," 
to  Velasquez's  "  Surrender  of  Breda."  Apart  from  that  other 
side  of  Tintoretto,  the  aesthetic  side,  everything  else  must 
have  suited  the  Spaniard,  even  if  he  thought  that  Titian 
"  carried  the  banner : "  *  the  study  of  space  and  air,  and  sug- 
gestion of  the  tone  of  a  special  place,  and,  above  all,  that  one 
extraordinary  impression  of  a  thing  seen  and  not  composed. 
Velasquez  journeyed  on  through  Italy,  the  guest  of  distin- 
guished people,  and  came  to  Rome,  then  a  great  resort  of  artists. 

*  Words  attributed  to  him  by  Boschini. 


VELASQUEZ  173 

Domenichino,  Guercino,  Guido,  Albano,  and  the  Frenchmen 
Poussin  and  Claude,  were  there.  How  much  and  how  httle  he 
saw  of  them  we  know  not.  We  know  that  he  made  studies,  as 
Rubens  had  done,  from  the  Sistine  Chapel,  still  uninjured  by 
time  and  the  smoke  of  incense,  and  that  he  copied  passages  from 
Raphael.  He  had  asked  permission  to  have  accession  at  all  times 
to  the  Vatican,  refusing  the  honour  of  a  residence  therein.  His 
usual  discretion  always  led  him  that  way  in  his  intercourse 
with  the  great.  The  memory  of  his  residence  at  the  Villa  Medici, 
obtained  for  him  by  the  Ambassador  of  Spain,  ennobles  the 
tradition  of  what  is  now  the  French  Academy  of  Art.  We  still 
have  a  few  of  his  sketches  made  there,  in  a  successful  looseness 
that  brings  to  us  the  impression  of  the  modern  Corot.  Notwith- 
standing the  antique  marble,  notwithstanding  the  classic 
paintings,  the  record  of  his  residence  in  Rome  for  us  is  that  of 
two  great  realistic  paintings — "  Vulcan's  Forge  "  and  "  Joseph's 
Coat,"  in  which  the  Elizabethan  freedom  from  correct  tradition 
and  love  of  the  probabilities  of  a  story  are  combined  with  vig- 
orous studies  of  the  special  models  found  at  hand.  The  same 
men  are  there  to-day,  the  same  places  from  which  he  painted, 
giving  them  the  names  of  Homeric  tradition  or  of  biblical  story. 
The  pictures  seem  strange  to  us  because  we  have  become  ar- 
chaeologists, but  seen  in  a  turn  of  mind  similar  to  that  of  the 
art  ist,  they  are  nothing  more  than  the  working  out  of  a  probable 


174  GREAT    MASTERS 

story,  modified  by  the  young  man's  desire  to  learn  more  of  his 
trade  of  painting. 

As  the  time  for  returning  drew  near,  Velasquez  was  ordered 
to  bring  back  for  the  King  a  portrait  of  his  sister,  the  Infanta 
Maria,  sister  of  the  Queen  of  France,  consort  of  Ferdinand,  King 
of  Hungary,  who  was  passing  through  Naples  on  her  way  to 
her  husband.  This  was  the  lady  of  whom  Buckingham  had  writ- 
ten to  King  James,  "Without  flattery,  I  believe  there  is  no 
sweeter  creature  in  the  world,"  and  with  whom  seven  years  be- 
fore Charles  Stuart  of  England  had  signed  a  marriage  contract. 

There,  too,  in  Naples,  which  we  must  remember  to  have  been 
a  Spanish  possession,  Velasquez  found  another  Spanish  artist, 
the  Valentian,  Ribera,  about  whom  float  many  traditions  of  vio- 
lence and  terrorism,  and  whose  works  still  remain  a  monument 
of  Spanish  art,  and  of  a  certain  side  of  Spanish  harshness  of  feel- 
ing ;  but  a  great  painter  in  his  way,  sufficiently  like  the  early 
Velasquez  to  have  divided  with  him  until  recently  the  author- 
ship of  the  "Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,"  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery.* Without  incurring  the  hatredof  the  jealous  Ribera,  Ve- 
lasquez enjoyed  during  his  stay  in  Naples  the  friendship  of  the 
viceroy,  the  Duke  of  Alcala,  who  was  the  friend  and  patron  of 
his  father-in-law.  It  is  plausible  that  Velasquez's  success,  and 
his  peaceful  enjoyment  of  the  same  success  that  allowed  him 

•  It  is  now  ascribed  to  Ribera. 


DON  BALTASAR  CARLOS  ON  HORSEBACK 

THE    PRADO,    MADRID 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BR  A  UN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


VELASQUEZ  175 

to  practise  his  profession  easily  and  nobly,  is  due  all  through 
life  to  his  having  been  taken  care  of  by  these  early  friends  who 
watched  over  him  for  many  years. 

In  the  spring  of  1631  Velasquez  had  returned  to  Madrid, 
was  praised  by  Olivarez  for  not  having  filled  out  his  two  years 
of  vacation,  and  went  at  once  to  thank  the  King  for  not  having 
allowed  any  other  painter  to  paint  his  portrait  in  his  absence. 
The  next  eighteen  years  Velasquez  resided  without  interruption 
at  the  court  of  Philip  the  Fourth.  The  King  changed  Velasquez's 
studio,  which  was  at  a  distance,  to  a  nearer  position  within  the 
palace,  where,  as  we  know,  he  visited  him  often,  having  a  special 
key  to  one  of  the  doors.  The  series  of  portraits  of  the  Infant 
Balthazar  Carlos,  heir  to  the  throne,  began  with  the  return  of 
the  painter.  It  seems  useless  to  describe  them,  and  in  fact  how 
describe  the  masterpieces  of  Velasquez  so  much  like  the  image 
of  nature  itself,  that  it  is  difficult  to  realise  that  they  must  have 
been  thought  out,  and  planned,  and  corrected,  until  they  seem 
to  have  been  nothing  but  the  flow  of  an  easy  brush.  It  is 
possible  to  see  one  of  the  early  portraits  of  the  child,  Bal- 
thazar, here  in  the  Boston  Museum,  painted  probably  within 
a  year  or  so  of  Velasquez's  return.  At  this  time,  too,  begins  the 
series  of  the  dwarfs,  the  playthings  of  the  court,  famous  to  us 
also  through  Velasquez's  portraits.  Perhaps  of  all  the  portraits 
of  the  little  prince,  the  one  on  horseback,  when  he  gallops  on 


176  GREAT    MASTERS 

his  pony,  full  tilt,  in  a  shimmering  of  daylight,  is  the  most 
astonishing,  as  suggesting  the  noise  of  motion  in  the  silence  of 
nature.  Not  that  these  paintings  of  Velasquez,  which  repre- 
sent the  open  space  of  out-of-doors,  are  authentic  scientific  imi- 
tations. Most  of  them  are  really  painted  within  the  studio,  with 
the  light  not  too  far  up,  with  shadows  that  we  know  are  those 
of  an  enclosed  space,  though  rather  by  analysis  than  by  feeling. 
The  painter  saw  the  landscapes  from  his  very  rooms,  and  he  has 
brought  them,  if  one  may  use  such  a  figure,  a  little  nearer.  The 
naturalism,  therefore, which  he  employs,  is  not  that  of  the  strictly 
modern  student,  however  thoroughly  the  methods  of  the  great 
painter  have  suited  the  modern  man,  pursuer  of  a  nearer  repre- 
sentation of  out-door  light  and  air.  But  all  of  these  portraits  are 
better  judged  by  photographs  than  by  cold  description  of  words. 
They  vary  in  merit  or  in  quality,  as  may  very  well  have  been 
when  we  consider  that  they  are  what  might  be  called  task- work. 
But  to  us,  they  are  the  most  easily  natural  of  all  representa- 
tions. As  the  painter  grows  more  learned,  and  more  expert, 
and  more  secure,  his  touch,  his  execution,  vary  more  with  the 
subject  and  become  more  difficult  to  analyse.  Yet  in  cases  of 
overmuch  cleaning  we  learn  that  often  under  the  easiest  brush- 
work  lies  a  careful  and  minute  study.  Besides  the  task-work  of 
portraits  came  also  the  demand  for  that  great  Spanish  necessity, 
the  religious  picture,  the  great  source  of  work,  ot  emulation,  of 


DON    BALTASAR    CARLOS    AND    A    DWARF 

BOS  TO  N     MUSEUM 


VELASQUEZ  177 

enthusiasm,  of  feeling  for  the  Spanish  artist.  Though  regulated 
by  church  discipline,  these  paintings  never  suggest  anything  but 
a  natural  impulse  and  a  wish  to  bring  the  facts  to  the  eye  of 
the  religious  mind.  In  that  way,  they  are  some  of  the  truest 
expressions  of  religious  feeling  produced  by  art.  They  may  not 
suit  the  taste  of  to-day,  or  the  sentiments  of  a  more  intellectual  or 
more  refined  habit  of  mind,  but  if  ever  the  sentiment  of  the  peo- 
ple was  reflected  in  art,  it  is  there  in  the  painting  of  the  Span- 
iards, and  in  those  sculptures  so  brotherly  to  paintings,  which 
are  impossible,  apparently,  to  the  modern  capacity.  The  sculp- 
tor Montanes,  whom  Velasquez  has  painted,  has  managed  to 
make  painted  dolls  express  tragic  emotion,  or  feelings  of  love 
and  devotion,  which  rival  the  most  intimate  expressions  in  mar- 
ble or  canvas.  It  was,  therefore,  to  be  expected  that  Velasquez 
could  not  escape  the  order  for  church  paintings.  Indeed,  it  is 
surprising  that  only  three  remain  to  his  account,  unless  we  count 
that  charming  poem,  "  The  Meeting  of  the  Two  Hermits,  An- 
thony and  Paul,"  one  of  the  latest  of  his  works,  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later,  done  at  the  same  time  as  the  cynical  "yEsop  " 
and  "  Moenippus,"  or  the  cruelly  true  images  of  dwarf,  buffoon, 
or  idiot,  who  posed  before  this  mirror-like  mind,  which  reflected 
with  Spanish  sincerity  either  poetry  or  prose.  In  that  delight- 
fully reaHstic  dream,  "  Paul  and  Anthony,"  we  feel  the  secret  of 
the  desert ;  of  the  recesses  of  nature,  the  peace  of  solitude,  the 


178  GREAT    MASTERS 

friendship  of  new  acquaintance,  the  hfe  of  the  ascete,  and  the 
feehng  of  hopeful  aspiration  which  comes  to  those  who  have 
waited  long  and  whose  patience  is  to  be  rewarded.  This  romance 
is  expressed  in  terms  of  simple  but  beautiful  realism,  and  the 
painter  must  have  felt  that  the  scene  had  really  been  that  way. 
But  this  is  far  off  at  the  end.  In  the  middle  years  of  A^elasquez,  he 
painted  a  wonderful  picture,  the  "  Christ  on  the  Cross,"  impossi- 
ble to  describe,  nearer  a  crucifix  than  a  crucifixion,  whose  merits 
are  as  much  based  on  the  facts  of  inaccuracy  as  of  reality.  A 
great  mass  of  black  air,  of  nowhere  in  particular,  lies  behind 
the  cross,  against  which  is  placed  the  figure  of  the  Saviour,  beau- 
tiful, but  not  too  beautiful,  perhaps  only  just  dead,  with  no  ex- 
pression of  agony,  and  yet  by  the  sudden  droop  of  the  head,  half 
covered  by  its  long  hair,  giving  the  strange  feeling  of  sadness, 
of  injustice,  and  of  final  repose.  That  same  balance  of  unreality 
and  realism  exists  in  the  Christ  of  the  "  Flagellation,"  where  the 
wearied,  but  not  exhausted.  Saviour,  His  arms  tied  to  the  pillar, 
turns  His  head  in  blessing  toward  the  little  child  saying  its 
prayers  to  Him  at  the  distance  of  many  centuries. 

These  eighteen  years  of  successful  work,  covering  what  is 
known  as  the  middle  period  of  Velasquez's  art,  were  passed,  as 
I  have  said,  in  the  employment  of  the  King,  in  small  honorary 
positions,  whose  functions  were  concerned  with  daily  service,  so 
that  only  a  part  of  his  time  went  to  the  great  profession  of 


POPE    INNOCENT    X .    (DETAIL) 

DORIA    GALLERY,    ROME 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY      BRAXJX,      CLEMENT      &      CO 


VELASQUEZ  179 

painting.  The  pay  was  small,  and  payments  rare,  and  often  past 
balances  unpaid  were  wiped  out  by  further  position  or  increas- 
ing stipend.  In  thinking  of  the  occupation  of  the  court-painter, 
we  should  never  forget  his  other  occupations,  and  his  being 
therefore  a  servant  whose  time  was  drawn  upon,  and  that  one 
of  the  reasons  for  the  small  number  of  the  great  painter  s  works 
has  this  simple  explanation.  Hence,  too,  there  is  little  to  say  ex- 
cept to  record  the  paintings.  At  the  end  of  his  eighteen  years 
Velasquez  went  again  to  Italy  by  order.  The  painter,  now  fifty 
years  old,  had  been  appointed  director  of  the  works  undertaken 
to  rebuild  certain  portions  of  the  Madrid  Alcazar.  He  was  to  ob- 
tain paintings  and  other  art  treasures  and  to  engage  decorative 
artists,  for  all  of  which  it  was  necessary  to  go  to  the  great  mar- 
kets. Therefore,  Velasquez  embarked  for  Genoa,  from  which  city 
he  went  to  Milan  and  saw  the  great  Leonardo  ;  then  to  Venice 
where  he  bought  Tintorettos  ;  to  Bologna,  to  Modena,  where  he 
saw  Correggios,  and  could  see  the  work  of  the  painters  whom  he 
engaged  for  work  in  Madrid ;  to  Parma,  where  he  saw  Correggios 
work  still  free  from  dust  and  stain,  and  smoke,  and  damp ;  to 
Florence,  and  Naples,  and  Rome,  to  which  he  returned  and 
where  he  painted  the  terrible  portrait  of  Pope  Innocent  Tenth, 
said  to  have  been  the  ugliest  of  all  the  successors  of  St.  Peter, 
the  lover  of  books,  a  protector  of  art,  who  ordered  the  Colonnade 
of  St.  Peter's,  and  is  of  the  Popes  the  most  reproached  with  the 


180  GREAT    MASTERS 

favouring  of  his  family.  With  this  picture,  and  to  steady  his  hand, 
he  painted  also  the  portrait  of  his  slave  and  pupil,  Pareja.  We 
owe  this  great  picture  of  the  Pope  to  Velasquez's  delay  in  return- 
ing. The  King  had  become  impatient  a  year  before  and  had 
written  to  his  ambassador  in  Rome,  "since  you  know  his  phleg- 
matic character,  see  that  he  does  not  use  it  to  prolong  his  resi- 
dence over  there."  And  again,  "  1  have  ordered  Velasquez  not  to 
come  back  by  land,  considering  his  character."  And  six  months 
later  he  again  insists  that  Velasquez  should  come  back,  adding, 
"  if  he  has  not  done  it,  which  I  doubt  much,  it  would  be  well 
that  you  should  press  him  so  that  he  should  not  delay  his 
departure  a  single  minute."  This  was  in  1650;  in  June,  1651, 
Velasquez  returned  to  Spain.  Then  came  upon  him  more  honour- 
able occupations,  especially  that  of  quartermaster-general  of 
the  King's  house,  obliging  him  to  much  work.  The  quarter- 
master had  charge  of  all  public  festivals,  and  had  certain  obliga- 
tions within  the  palace.  In  travel  he  had  charge  of  the  lodging 
of  the  King  and  of  all  his  attendants.  It  was  he  who  placed  the 
chair  of  the  King  at  table  at  ceremonial  dinners,  who  gave  the 
keys  to  the  new  chamberlains,  and  seated  the  cardinals  and 
viceroys  at  great  ceremonies.  He  received  three  thousand 
ducats  a  year,  and  wore  a  key  to  open  all  the  doors  of  the 
palace.  To  help  him,  Velasquez  obtained  as  an  assistant  Del 
Mazo,  who  became  thereupon  his  son-in-law.  By  him  we  have 


THE    ACTOR    (PABLILLOS    DE    VALLADOLID) 

THE    PRADO,    MADRID 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BR A UN,      CLEMENT     &     CO. 


VELASQUEZ  181 

the  portraits  of  Velasquez's  family,  and  behind  them  a  view  of 
the  studio  of  Velasquez,  with  a  long,  wide  window,  not  very  high 
up  wherein  we  see  the  great  executant  at  work.  Little  time  did 
Velasquez  have  to  enjoy  the  calm  of  the  studio.  Notwithstand- 
ing, the  most  marvellous  of  his  paintings,  those  which  seem  to 
be  the  result  of  a  most  undisturbed  attention,  were  painted 
during  these  years.  They  are,  in  a  certain  way,  the  most  remark- 
able of  realistic  renderings,  in  which  the  art  is  so  complete,  the 
naturalness  is  so  much  that  of  actual  nature,  so  little  that  of  the 
imitation  of  nature,  that  a  description  of  their  merits  would  pass 
beyond  the  ordinary  literary  possibilities.  These  great  pictures 
of  the  "  Meninas  "  (maids  of  honour)  and  of  the  "  Hilanderas  " 
(the  spinners)  are  those  I  am  thinking  of.  One  can  realise  how 
they  were  suggested  by  the  accidents  of  ordinary  life  in  the 
palace,  and  in  the  King's  wishes  of  some  records  of  them. 
Similar  desires  explain  the  portraits  of  those  curious  attendants 
of  courts  at  the  time :  the  buffoons,  and  the  dwarfs,  and  similar 
sad  curiosities.  But  the  mirror  of  Velasquez's  eye  reproduced 
equally  with  impartial  vision  the  aristocratic  lineaments  of 
kings  and  princes,  or  the  swollen  face  of  an  idiot  boy. 

We  know  how  beautifully  he  could  paint  the  nude  as  he 
painted  all  things,  but  either  the  reason  which  I  have  insisted 
upon,  that  of  his  work  being  merely  from  orders  or  of  his  rep- 
resenting very  thoroughly  that  Spanish  tradition  recommended 


182  GREAT    MASTERS 

by  the  Church,  the  avoiding  subjects  of  doubtful  morality,  has 
given  us  only  one,  but  a  most  charming  painting  of  the  beauty 
of  the  female  form.  And  one  of  the  notes  of  Velasquez's  repro- 
duction is  the  infrequency  of  repetition  of  subjects  beyond  those 
official  portraits  for  whose  manufacture  he  was  engaged  by  his 
office.  In  any  other  country,  under  any  other  disposition  of 
time,  a  man  who  had  painted  the  "  Drunkards  "  would  have 
been  asked  to  repeat  them  over  and  over  again,  and  would 
have  made  a  reputation  thereby.  Such  a  wonderful  historical 
painting  as  "  The  Surrender  of  Breda  "  would  have,  as  in  mod- 
ern times,  determined  the  career  of  any  master.  Thus  it  hap- 
pens with  Velasquez  ;  the  reverse  having  happened  with  many 
painters  is  only  a  proof  that  occasion  determines  the  career.  It 
does  not  follow  that  the  man  pre-eminent  in  any  line  is  incap- 
able of  following  another.  This  employment  of  the  painter  in 
a  fixed  way  has  limited  also  to  an  extraordinary  degree  the 
number  of  his  paintings.  First,  and  foremost,  he  was  a  member 
and  a  servant  of  the  court.  It  was  only  very  late,  and  perhaps  be- 
cause in  other  countries  honours  were  given  as  rewards  to  artists, 
and  also  because  the  relations  of  Velasquez  to  the  family  of  the 
King  might  need  it,  that  Philip  made  the  artist  a  knight  of 
the  order  of  Santiago.  There  was  a  pretty  legend  of  the  King 
having  himself  painted,  on  the  figure  of  the  artist  in  the  great 
picture  of  the  "Maids  of  Honour"  (Meninas),  the  red  cross 


< 

Q 

C    a 
p:  ^ 


VELASQUEZ  183 

which  marks  Velasquez's  rank.  According  to  Palomino,  the 
cross  was  added  to  the  painting  by  order  of  the  King  after 
Velasquez's  death,  and  yet  it  may  have  been  painted  at  the 
time,  as  proper  for  a  person  needing  a  high  degree  of  nobility 
to  be  introduced  into  the  intimate  family  of  royalty.  After  the 
King  had  granted  this  order  it  was  necessary  for  Velasquez  to 
make  the  proof  of  his  nobility  in  sufficient  descent.  Much  time 
and  discussion  were  necessary  to  establish  these  rights  in  full ; 
in  part  they  were  acknowledged.  It  is  only  within  a  few  years 
that  we  have  the  details  of  these  transactions.  There  we  see 
conformably  to  what  I  am  trying  to  make  special  in  the  posi- 
tion of  Velasquez,  that  the  testimonies  of  other  artists  and  of 
many  noblemen  is,  "  that  they  have  never  heard  that  Velas- 
quez had  exercised  the  trade  of  painting  or  that  he  had  sold 
any  paintings ;  that  he  only  practised  his  art  for  his  own  pleas- 
ure and  that  he  might  obey  the  King."  Notwithstanding,  it  was 
necessary  to  receive  a  brief  from  the  Pope  (the  order  being  a 
religious  order),  and  that  the  King  himself  should  use  his 
greatest  power  in  order  that  Velasquez  should  have  this  dis- 
tinction conferred  upon  him.  These  are  the  words;  they  are 
interesting:  "Inasmuch  as  being  king  and  natural  lord,  rec- 
ognising no  superior  in  temporal  matters,  of  my  own  will,  my 
infallible  wisdom,  and  my  power  royal  and  absolute,  I  create  as 
nobleman  the  said  Diego  de  Silva,  but  only  for  the  purpose  of 


184  GREAT    MASTERS 

this  suit."  Thus,  Diego  de  Silva,  whom  we  know  as  Velasquez, 
was  received  into  the  great  order  of  Santiago  with  appropriate 
ceremonies.  This  honour  only  increased  the  amount  of  court 
business  falling  upon  the  painter  whose  last  work  in  art  was 
over.  "  The  Hermits,  St.  Anthony  and  St.  Paul,"  must  have 
been  his  last  work  ;  and  the  painting  shows  that  degree  of  com- 
mand of  the  resources  of  art  which  can  only  belong  to  the 
practice  of  half  a  century. 

In  its  expression  of  the  romance  of  retirement  and  abne- 
gation, the  painting  was  a  beautiful  farewell  before  return  into 
the  world  in  which  Velasquez  was  to  end  his  days.  The  mar- 
riage of  the  daughter  of  Philip  IV.,  Maria  Teresa,  was  to  task 
to  their  utmost  the  functions  of  the  quartermaster-general. 
The  preparations  and  ceremonies  lasted  from  March  to  July, 
1660.  For  two  months  Velasquez  worked  on  the  preparations 
of  the  building  in  which  the  ceremony  of  the  handing  of  the 
Infanta  to  the  ambassadors  and  the  King  of  France  was  to 
take  place.  From  Madrid  to  the  frontier  the  quartermaster 
had  to  procure  lodgings  for  the  King  and  all  the  court.  We 
have  all  the  details  of  the  voyage  and  the  ceremonies.  The 
cavalcade  stretched  over  a  space  of  eighteen  miles,  and  the 
King's  necessities  obliged  the  use  of  3,500  mules,  82  horses, 
70  carriages,  and  70  waggons.  After  much  delay  the  royal  par- 
ties met  in  the  building  provided  for  them  at  the  Isle  of  the 


VELASQUEZ  185 

Pheasants  in  the  River  Bidassoa,  a  Httle  bit  of  neutral  ground 
five  hundred  feet  long,  which  marked  the  frontier  of  Spain  and 
France.  To-day  it  has  almost  disappeared.  There,  ages  ago, 
Louis  XI.  bargained  with  the  courtiers  of  Henry  IV.  of  Castile ; 
there  Francis  I.  bade  good-bye  to  his  sons,  who  were  to  be  his 
pledges  on  his  release  from  captivity ;  it  was  there  he  proposed 
to  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  to  settle  all  matters  by  a  hand-to- 
hand  fight.  On  the  fourth  of  June  the  Kings  met  and  signed 
the  treaty,  and  the  young  princess  was  given  to  her  new  court. 
The  presents  of  Louis  XIV.  were  presented  to  the  King 
through  Velasquez.  The  scene  is  famous,  and  the  names  of 
Spaniards  and  Frenchmen  present  are  among  the  great  names 
of  history.  The  quartermaster-general  of  the  King  was  of 
course  present,  and  we  know  how  he  was  dressed.  His  clothes 
"  were  fringed  with  silver  lace;  he  wore  the  usual  Castihan  lace 
collar,  and  the  short  cloak  on  which  was  embroidered  the  red 
cross  of  Santiago.  The  decoration  of  that  order,  in  diamonds, 
hung  from  his  neck  by  a  gold  chain ;  his  sword  and  scabbard 
were  marvels  in  silver  of  Itahan  art."  If  only  instead  of  man- 
aging these  beautiful  ceremonies,  Velasquez  had  been  retained 
to  paint  them  I 

News  of  his  death  had  reached  Madrid,  but  he  returned  in 
apparent  good  health.  Thirty  days  afterward,  however,  he  began 
to  feel  the  effects  of  excess  of  work  and  was  obliged  to  take  to 


186  GREAT    MASTERS 

his  bed,  where  he  was  visited  by  the  Patriarch  of  the  Indies,  sent 
by  order  of  the  King  to  comfort  him  with  spiritual  advice,  as 
his  state  seemed  dangerous.  A  few  days  before,  both  had  fig- 
ured in  the  ceremonies  on  the  River  Bidassoa.  Velasquez 
signed  his  testament,  chose  his  executors,  received  the  sacra- 
ment, and  died  on  Friday,  the  sixth  of  August,  1660,  in  his 
sixty-first  year.  He  was  buried  with  all  the  honours  of  the 
Knights  of  Santiago,  among  knights  and  noblemen.  And 
eight  days  afterward  his  wife,  Juana,  died  and  was  buried  in 
the  same  tomb.  The  King  seems  to  have  felt  his  death.  His 
own  tremulous  handwriting  still  remains  on  the  margin  of  a 
business  statement  of  the  Junta  to  the  effect  that  Velasquez's 
salary  should  return  to  the  Commission.  Philip  has  noted,  "  I 
am  overwhelmed."  Velasquez's  business  was  supposed  to  have 
remained  in  disorder,  and  his  property  was  levied  upon  for 
claims  of  his  office.  It  was  only  after  several  years,  and  pay- 
ment of  moneys  by  his  son-in-law,  that  the  claim  was  reversed 
and  the  state  shown  to  be  in  debt  to  the  painter.  As  he  was 
thought  of  then,  he  remains  to-day ;  of  all  artists,  the  most  of 
a  painter ;  as  having  most  naturally  expressed  the  special  dif- 
ferences of  painting  from  other  forms  of  representations,  the 
appearance  of  things  and  not  their  analysis  being  the  special 
character  of  painting.  His  life  is  that  of  a  modest,  sincere,  and 
honourable  man.  There  is  not  the  slightest  record  of  any  fail- 


ADMIRAL    DON    ADRIAN    PULIDO    PAREJA 

NATIONAL   GALLERY,    LONDON 
PHOTOGRAPH       BY     THE     BERLIN     PHOTOGRAPHIC     CO. 


VELASQUEZ  187 

ing.  We  know  that  he  was  most  generous  to  other  artists  and 
an  admirer  of  other  men's  talents.  The  directness  and  simplic- 
ity of  his  mind  we  see  in  his  painting.  There  is  none  other  so 
ingenuous,  notwithstanding  his  astounding  skill.  He  has  the 
admiration  of  the  future  student,  and  owing  to  his  being  pre- 
eminently the  painter  of  Spain,  the  continuance  of  race  inter- 
est which  must  continue  for  ages  with  those  who  speak  the  one 
language  that  balances  the  spread  of  the  Anglo-Saxon. 


PORTRAIT    OF   THE    ARTIST 

MUNICH  GALLERY 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  HANFSTAENGL 


DURER 


**  Niimberg's  hand  goes  through  every  land ' 


DURER 


The  very  important  commercial  city  of  Niirnberg,  still  impor- 
tant, was  once,  and  is  still,  proud  of  its  great  citizen,  Albert 
Diirer.  His  name  is  one  of  those  that  help  the  German  romance 
which  has  formed  about  the  city  and  which  supplies  for  poetry, 
for  painting,  and  for  music,  themes  more  or  less  altered  from 
their  original  meagreness.  At  the  end  of  many  years  of  labour, 
which  had  added  to  the  wealth  and  fame  of  his  city,  Albert 
Diirer,  in  a  letter  to  the  council,  alluded  to  the  little  business 
encouragement  given  to  him  by  his  fellow- citizens,  saying: 
"  During  the  thirty  years  I  have  stayed  at  home,  I  have  not 
received  from  people  in  this  town  work  worth  500  florins — - 
and  not  a  fifth  of  that  has  been  profit."  Praise  and  admiration 
he  had  received,  fully,  but  not  that  support  which  in  a  com- 
mercial community  is  the  only  real  measure  of  appreciation. 

The  free  town  of  Niirnberg  had  reached  by  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century  a  position  in  commerce  second  only  to  the 
great  Italian  ports.  It  stood  between  Venice  and  the  Low 
Countries  and  sent  out  the  work  of  its  goldsmiths,  armourers, 
printers,  publishers,  metal-workers,  and  paper-makers  to  both 


192  GREAT    MASTERS 

ends  of  Europe.  With  the  makers  of  these  things  the  fortunes 
of  the  family  of  Diirer  were  connected.  The  family  which  was 
to  add  so  much  to  the  glory  of  the  German  name  was  not  Ger- 
man, but  Hungarian.  The  very  name  of  Durer  (pronounced 
Thiirer  in  Niirnberg)  is  a  translation  of  the  original :  probably 
Eytas,  the  name  of  a  little  hamlet  in  Hungary.  In  the  Hun- 
garian town  of  Gyula,  Albert  Diirer 's  grandfather  learned  the 
art  and  trade  of  the  goldsmith.  One  of  his  sons,  Albert  Diirer, 
the  elder,  came  to  Niirnberg,  in  1455,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight  (as  recorded  in  his  son's  memoranda),  "  on  the  same  day, 
March  11,  1455,  that  Pirkheimer  was  celebrating  his  wedding, 
and  a  great  dance  was  held  under  the  big  lime-tree."  Diirer 
must  have  noted  this  association  with  the  Pirkheimers,  because 
in  another  generation,  and  when  grown  up,  he  was  the  friend 
of  Willibald  Pirkheimer  and  remained  his  friend  through  life. 
Pirkheimer  was  a  type  of  the  other  class,  whose  edges  met  the 
artists,  and  the  intellectual  men.  Pirkheimer  was  a  student 
and  a  writer,  and  his  greater  wealth  and  position  allowed  him 
to  assist  Diirer  for  many  years,  and  to  play  to  some  extent  that 
part  of  patron  and  worldly  friend  needed  by  the  artist  in  his 
more  secluded  life.  He  represented  also  for  Diirer  amusement 
and  escape  from  confinement  of  work  and  narrowness  of  the 
home  circle  ;  we  dimly  feel  this  in  their  correspondence,  and  in 
the  legends  of  the  artist's  life.  Hence,  perhaps,  a  quiet  animos- 


^m^^^^ 


^^Smm>aaiii>^>mt<lemtmtd&^Sm»^^^i^is':^S^^^ 


mm 

IL!BALDiriRREYA\HERiEFFiGlES  I 
•  AETATlS-SVAE-ANNOL-iji  •  '' 

I  VIMT\T(.-  LNGE>^I  O  ■  a\ETERA-A\ORTIS 
•ERYMT 
A\  •  d'  •  -K  X  •  i  V  .  •      K 


PORTRAIT    OF    W  I  L  L I B  A  L  D    P I R  K  H  E I M  E  R 

ENGRAVIXG     ON     COPPER,      15 '2  4 


D  U  R  E  R  193 

ity  between  the  patron,  who  tempted  the  artist  by  outside 
pleasures,  and  the  wife  who  may  have  been  grateful  for  money 
assistance,  but  felt  also  some  neglect  through  this  rivalry.  Not- 
withstanding Pirkheimer's  distinction  of  the  moment,  he  lives 
for  us  only  through  his  acquaintance  with  Diirer,  who  has 
made  of  him  an  immortal  portrait.  This  was  many  years  after, 
when  Pirkheimer  was  fifty-three  years  old,  and  the  marvellous 
engraving  shows  the  scholar  and  the  aristocrat,  and  the  man 
fond  of  a  life  of  love  and  enjoyment,  that  has  left  its  mark. 
Many  were  the  men  of  culture  in  the  busy  city,  which  held 
also  the  great  bookseller  and  publisher,  Koburger,  the  god- 
father of  Albert  Diirer.  The  art  of  printing  had  been  recently 
invented  ;  the  beginnings  of  engraving  on  copper  and  on  wood 
were  already  well  advanced,  and  the  successful  manufacture 
of  paper  and  printing  ink  was  to  secure  the  spread  of  the  print 
as  well  as  of  the  bound  book.  Albert  Diirer's  father  became  an 
important  goldsmith  in  Niirnberg,  having  been  first  an  appren- 
tice to  Jerome  Holper,  whose  daughter  Barbara  he  married  in 
1467.  Of  their  eighteen  children,  only  three  lived  to  grow  up. 
Albert,  born  in  1471,  Andrew,  in  1484,  and  John,  in  1490.  By 
marriage,  Diirer  the  elder  entered  into  the  rights  of  a  burgher 
and  held  offices  of  repute.  Diirer's  account  of  his  father  says  : 
"  that  he  spent  his  life  in  great  industry  and  severe  work  to 
earn  by  his  own  hand  a  living  for  himself  and  family ;  that  he 


194  GREAT    MASTERS 

was  poor,  and  met  with  many  troubles  and  adversities  and  was 
esteemed  by  all,  since  he  led  an  honest  Christian  life.  He  was 
patient,  gentle,  and  peaceful  in  his  dealings  with  everybody ; 
kept  but  little  company  and  sought  few  pleasures ;  he  was  a 
man  of  few  words  and  feared  God  ;  he  paid  great  attention  to 
his  children's  education,  and  his  daily  words  to  them  were  that : 
*  we  should  love  God  and  deal  truly  with  our  neighbours.* "  A 
goldsmith  was  then  somewhat  of  an  artist,  and,  of  course,  an 
engraver  on  metal.  Andrew  became  another  goldsmith,  and 
John  ended  as  a  painter  in  Poland,  not  far  from  the  ancestral 
home.  The  lines  that  we  draw  to-day  between  the  divisions  of 
art  were  not  of  the  same  kind  at  the  moments  which  have  left 
their  mark.  Though  the  methods  were  perhaps  even  more  sep- 
arate than  they  are  to-day,  the  attitude  of  the  worker  in  art 
was  much  less  specialised.  Diirer's  father  wislied  to  make  him 
a  goldsmith,  a  worker  in  metals,  but  the  boy  naturally  passed 
into  a  desire  for  the  study  of  painting,  then  one  of  the  arts 
beginning  to  promise  great  things,  which  since  have  happened. 
Albert,  therefore,  was  apprenticed  to  the  painter  Michael 
Wolgemut;  this  was  in  1486  and  lasted  three  years,  during 
which  Diirer  says  :  "  God  lent  me  industry  so  that  I  learned 
well;  but  I  had  to  suffer  much  annoyance  from  my  fellow- 
pupils."  There  is  such  a  thing  as  German  painting ;  a  some- 
thing which  is  not  the  Flemish  painting ;  which  is  not  even  the 


STUDY    OF    AX    OLD    MAXS    HEAD 

THE    ALBERTINA,    VIENNA 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY      HA.VFSTAENGL 


DURER  195 

painting  of  the  Rhine.  Along  the  Rhine  for  centuries  some 
flower  of  art  had  existed  that  must  have  connected  with  the 
German  world  on  the  other  side.  A  certam  harshness,  a  diffi- 
culty of  meeting  the  outside  mind  half  way,  we  feel  through 
what  remains.  Had  I  time  I  should  plead  the  cause  of  the 
artists  struggling  with  inherited  mental  obstructions,  whose 
work  is,  however,  beautiful  if  you  can  see  through  its  ugliness. 
As  it  was  mainly  task-work,  meant  to  fit  into  churches,  a  part 
of  the  merits  of  architecture  have  given  it  form  and  dignity, 
and  have  assured  a  constructive  arrangement  far  superior  to 
the  looseness  of  a  later  time  which  had  broken  the  laws  of 
obedience  and  respect. 

In  the  provinces  of  Alsatia,  Martin  Schon,  Martin  the  Beau- 
tiful, was  painting  and  engraving.  The  influence  of  Flemish 
masters,  perhaps  of  Burgundian  art,  was  beginning  to  give 
sweetness  to  cruder  forms.  The  prospect  before  young  Diirer, 
after  his  apprenticeship  with  Wolgemut,  was  a  residence  and 
study  at  Colmar  with  Martin.  Meanwhile  he  helped  as  an 
assistant  and  as  a  scholar  with  the  Niirnberg  painter  and  his 
associates,  for  the  men  practised  in  what  might  be  called  firms, 
and  all  hands  helped  in  the  manufacture  of  the  work  of  art. 
The  boy  from  the  very  first  was  endowed  with  a  capacity  for 
the  use  of  the  hand,  which  increased  to  a  degree  that  marks 
him  as  one  of  the  principal  executants  the  world  has  seen.  His 


196  GREAT    MASTERS 

method,  of  course,  was  that  of  his  teaching,  but  ah-eady  the  boy 
of  thirteen  or  fifteen  recorded  his  observations  in  a  manner  stiff, 
perhaps,  and  wanting  in  knowledge,  but  sufficient  for  the  posi- 
tion of  any  artist  however  important.  His  work  must  have  been 
that  of  the  style  of  the  day,  merged  into  the  work  of  his  em- 
ployers ;  that  excellent  way  by  which  the  student  learned  from 
the  inside,  and  not  as  a  follower  of  lectures  or  winner  of  marks 
for  proficiency.  He  was  tested  by  what  was  actually  saleable 
then  and  there.  Next  to  the  years  of  apprenticeship  the  rule 
was  to  have  the  years  of  travel  (Wanderjahre).  Diirer  then 
went  to  Colmar  and  to  Strassburg — too  late,  however,  to  study 
under  Martin  the  Beautiful.  He  worked  also  at  Basle  and  came 
to  Venice,  where  the  space  and  splendour  of  the  art  of  painting 
first  appeared  to  him.  There  he  embarked  in  those  delicious 
studies,  never  to  end,  through  which  the  dreamer  hopes  to  get 
at  the  secrets  of  the  nature  whose  image  he  is  in  love  with.  We 
have  his  own  delightful  young  record  of  how  he  found  ' '  that 
things  had  been  written  about  how  to  make  out  the  propor- 
tions of  the  human  body,  and  how  a  man  called  Jacob  (Jacob 
"  Walsh,"  or,  Italian,  "  Jacopo  Dei  Barbari "),  born  in  Venice,  a 
lovely  painter,  showed  him  how  to  make  out  the  proportions  of 
man  and  woman,  and  how  when  he  had  made  out  its  meaning 
it  was  better  to  him  than  if  he  had  had  a  kingdom.  In  that  sin- 
cerity which  is  the  mark  of  the  true  artist,  and  especially  of 


THE  K  M  G  H  T  ,  DEATH  AND  THE  DEVIL 

ENGRAVING     ON     COPPER,      1513 


DURER  197 

Diirer,  he  wished  to  have  it  printed  for  the  honour  of  this  brother- 
painter  and  for  common  use.  This  the  lesser  man  refused,  nor 
even  made  the  subject  quite  clear  to  Diirer.  He  goes  on  to  say- 
how  at  that  time  he  was  yet  young  and  had  not  heard  of  such 
things,  but  that  art  was  very  dear  to  him,  and  that  "  he  took  the 
matter  to  heart  so  much  that  he  might  bring  it  to  an  issue. 
This  he  saw  perfectly  well,  however  :  that  Jacob,  and  he  marked 
it  well,  did  not  wish  to  make  the  matter  '  clearer.'  So  that  he 
took  his  own  thing  to  himself  and  read  in  Vitruvius  [he  calls 
him  Fitruvius],  who  has  written  a  little  about  the  proportion 
of  a  man.  And  so  beginning  with  one  or  two  men,  he  made  a 
beginning  and  followed  that  study  from  day  to  day."  It  oc- 
cupied his  entire  life,  and  after  his  death  we  have  his  book  of 
*'  Human  Proportion,"  published  by  his  widow,  with  a  preface 
by  his  friend  Camerarius,  who  describes  the  appearance  of  the 
man  Diirer,  at  this  earlier  time,  not  yet  twenty-two,  in  all  the 
beauty  which  he  retained  through  most  of  his  life  :  ' '  Nature 
bestowed  upon  him  a  body  remarkable  in  build  and  stature,  and 
not  unworthy  of  the  noble  mind  it  contained.  His  head  was 
intelligent,  his  eyes  flashing,  his  nose  nobly  formed,  and  as  the 
Greeks  say,  tetragonon  (square).  He  had  a  long  neck,  broad 
chest,  narrow  waist,  powerful  thighs,  and  steady  legs.  As  to  his 
hands,  you  would  have  said  that  you  had  never  seen  anything 
more  elegant.  And  of  his  speech,  the  sweetness  was  so  great 


198  GREAT    MASTERS 

that  one  wished  it  never  to  end."  The  delightful  portrait  of 
himself  (in  the  old-fashioned  way  on  parchment),  in  his  twenty- 
second  year,  we  still  have,  and  later  he  has  twice  painted  himself. 
Camerarius  goes  on  to  say :  "  Almost  with  awe  have  we  gazed 
upon  the  bearded  face  of  the  man,  drawn  by  himself  in  the 
manner  we  have  described,  with  the  brush  on  the  canvas,  and 
without  any  previous  sketch.** 

His  long  hair  and  beard — so  beautifully  and  delicately  painted 
in  his  portraits,  which  give  him  a  little  of  the  conventional  look 
of  the  pictures  of  Christ — he  combed  and  disposed  with  that 
neatness  and  carefulness  which  belongs  to  his  pictures  and 
drawings.  But  the  portraits  are  more  than  representations  of  a 
handsome  man.  It  is  not  accidental  that  they  remind  one  of 
the  type  of  Christ.  There  is  in  the  expression  a  degree  of  sin- 
cerity, which  is  the  great  mark  also  of  all  that  he  has  done  and 
which  we  have  distinctly  expressed  in  the  written  notes  of  his 
memorandum-book.  He  remained  through  life  somewhat  of  a 
dreamer,  and  always  a  man  desiring  the  best,  and  hoping,  in 
the  purity  of  his  intentions,  that  that  best  could  happen.  That 
charming  portrait  of  himself  at  twenty-two  with  the  symboli- 
cal flower  in  his  hand  must  have  been  painted  just  as  his  father 
called  him  home  to  marry  a  girl  chosen  for  him,  Agnes,  the 
daughter  of  Hans  Frei,  who  "  came  to  terms  with  the  father 
and  gave  the  son  his  daughter  and  two  hundred  gulden  with 


M  E  L  E  N  C  H  O  L  I  A 

NGRAVING  ON  COPPER,  1514 


DURER  199 

her,  so  that  they  were  married  on  the  Monday  before  St.  Mar- 
garet's Day,  July  7, 1494."  Though  Hans  Frei  was  a  man  in  good 
position,  it  is  unhkely  that  any  more  came  to  the  young  couple 
through  him  than  her  wedding  dowry,  and  Dlirer  began  the 
struggle  with  life  in  the  helping  of  his  father,  who,  as  we  know, 
was  poor,  with  a  wife  and  two  boys  yet  to  provide  for.  When 
two  years  after  this  marriage  the  elder  Diirer  died,  the  artist 
accepted  the  care  of  the  entire  family.  He  had  begun  to  paint 
and  we  have  some  few  remarkable  portraits  and  religious  com- 
positions of  this  early  date.  He  is  too  great  a  man  not  to  have 
made  of  everything  he  touched  a  something  carrying  a  special 
importance,  but  his  methods  were  not  yet  personal ;  perhaps, 
even,  were  his  paintings  not  all  of  his  own  make,  and  it  is  by 
engraving  to  which  he  then  turned  that  he  made  a  reputation 
that,  great  at  the  beginning,  has  never  decreased.  To  this 
new  art  of  engraving  he  gave  some  of  the  characters  of  paint- 
ing, and  developed  it  both  on  copper  and  on  wood,  in  special 
manners,  whose  technical  success  is  still  the  highest  mark 
reached  in  each  special  line.  He  progressed  slowly,  his  first 
work  being  little  distinguishable  from  that  of  others ;  but  as  he 
obtained  control  of  his  material  he  gave  to  his  work  the  result 
of  continuous  outside  study  and  acquired  a  firm  confidence 
which  is  perhaps  as  striking  as  the  delicacy  of  skill  and  the 
strange  capacity  for  copying  nature.  And  yet,  it  is  in  the  ruder 


200  GREAT    MASTERS 

work  that  one  can  best  gauge  the  extraordinary  quality  of 
mind  brought  to  ordinary  popular  work.  We  little  think  to-day 
of  the  practical  use  of  his  religious  images  with  the  ordinary 
public  of  Catholic  countries.  This  demand  began  with  the  in- 
vention of  engraving  and  printing  and  the  improved  manu- 
facture of  paper,  all  of  which  are  just  developed  as  Diirer 
begins  to  draw.  He  made  for  the  ordinary  public  a  number  of 
woodcuts,  then  accepted  by  the  public  as  in  the  run  of  trade, 
and  now  ranking  with  the  great  works  of  less  humble  appeal 
and  materials.  *'  The  Life  of  Mary  "  as  later  "  The  Passion 
of  Christ "  gave  cheap  pictures,  as  accessible  to  the  common 
likings  and  kindly  feelings  of  the  multitude  as  they  seem 
to  the  special  lovers  of  art  masterpieces  of  design  and  exam- 
ples of  technical  fitness.  Perhaps  the  very  fact  of  a  more 
humble  material  allowed  Diirer  to  display  in  some  of  these, 
and  notably  in  the  great  "Apocalypse,"  without  timidity  or 
fear  of  comparison  in  technique,  a  grasp  of  imagination  un- 
surpassed by  the  efforts  of  any  artist  at  any  time. 

They  are  perhaps  the  only  designs  which  seem  adequate  to 
the  prophetic  poetry  of  the  text.  The  images  of  the  words  are 
translated  literally  into  facts  with  the  vision  of  actual  sight,  as 
if  in  a  record  of  those  things  that  one  feels  assured  of  in 
dreamland.  He  has  mentioned  himself  the  effort  to  recall  on 
waking  the  wonders  of  his  dreams,  and  also  the  fact,  simple  to 


D  U  R  E  R  201 

every  artist,  that  the  number  of  his  imaginings  was  greater 
than  he  could  possibly  record.  It  is  useless  to  describe  these 
great  and  simple  works  of  art — the  woodcuts — a  single  copy 
is  worth  more  than  pages  of  admiration  or  explanation.  We 
may  note  in  them  (though  less  perhaps  than  in  the  great  en- 
gravings on  copper)  the  passionate  desire  to  reproduce  in  every 
piece  of  work  something  studied  or  observed,  and  to  make  of 
such  details  both  an  interesting  addition  and  a  manner  of  con- 
tinuous progress  in  study.  This  in  the  other  engravings — those 
on  copper — which  are  carried  to  extraordinary  finish  of  accu- 
racy, is  so  great  that  to  an  artist  accustomed  to  analyse  the 
original  form  of  conception  it  might  almost  seem  that  the 
study  is  the  main  thing,  and  that  the  great  artist  has  dignified 
the  study  by  beauties  of  texture  and  line  ;  and  yet  more,  as  if  the 
most  precious  and  most  difficult  was  the  easiest,  by  an  impres- 
sion of  poetry  as  powerful  as  the  finest  verse  or  musical  sound. 
The  famous  engravings  about  which  so  much  has  been  written, 
"  The  Knight  and  Death  "  and  the  "  Melencholia,"  may  have 
been  in  his  mind  merely  "  types  of  temperament " — a  scheme  of 
subject  which  followed  him  through  life.  But  however  much 
explained,  there  is  within  the  innumerable  details  a  connection 
of  thought  felt  by  all,  which  can  be  nothing  but  the  continu- 
ous record  of  an  attitude  of  mind.  One  ought  to  add  the  "  St. 
Jerome  in  his  Cell  " — in  which  the  expression  of  peace  and 


202  GREAT    MASTERS 

contemplative  work  is  represented  as  well  as  unflinching  cour- 
age or  depth  of  dejection  in  the  "  Knight "  and  in  "  Melen- 
cholia."  The  three  great  engravings  are  as  famous  almost  as 
any  painting,  and  contain  perhaps  as  well  within  their  small 
size  and  quietness  of  appeal  the  suggestion  of  the  supernatural. 

But  these  great  engravings  were  done  after  his  return  from 
Venice,  to  which  he  went  in  1506.  His  success  had  been  great 
with  a  public  both  German  and  Italian,  and  his  works  had  been 
pirated  to  his  great  detriment.  An  obvious  reason  may  have 
been  his  trying  to  obtain  protection  in  Italy  against  the  for- 
geries of  his  works,  for  the  art  of  engraving  was  spreading 
throughout  the  world.  Moreover,  he  may  have  wished  to  see 
what  was  done  there  in  that  way,  as  also  the  paintings  which 
his  northern  home  only  heard  of,  and  to  which  his  ambition  as 
a  painter  must  have  turned  with  a  desire  such  as  we  have  had 
for  Europe. 

In  the  second  visit  to  Venice,  DUrer  now  appeared  as  a  rec- 
ognised master  ;  and  in  a  commercial  city  a  man  of  conse- 
quence, whose  work  was  known  and  for  sale,  and  had  a  stand- 
ing demand.  An  older  and  wiser  man,  and  perhaps  all  the 
more  sensitive,  he  distinguished,  among  the  men  he  met,  those 
whom  he  admired  and  those  whom  he  despised.  Writing  to 
Pirkheimer,  he  says :  "  There  are  so  many  nice  fellows  among 
the  Italians  ;  learned  men  of  importance,  with  players  on  the 


ST.  JEROME  IN  HIS  CELL 

ENGRAVING  ON  COPPER,  1514 


D  U  R  E  R  203 

lute  and  pipe,  with  great  knowledge  in  painting,  with  much 
noble  and  honest  virtue,  and  they  treat  me  with  much  honour 
and  friendship.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  the  most  unworthy, 
thievish  rascals  that  ever  lived  on  earth.  Did  I  not  know  this  I 
would  think  them  the  nicest  folk  on  earth.  As  for  myself,  I 
cannot  help  laughing  when  they  talk  to  me."  He  was  com- 
forted by  the  praise  of  John  Bellini,  then  very  old,  but  still, 
though  eighty  years  of  age,  at  the  full  summit  of  his  powers  ;  as 
we  know  by  the  great  picture  of  San  Zaccaria.  The  nobles, 
also,  the  gentlemen  (tzentillamen),  as  Diirer  calls  them,  treated 
him  well,  but  few  of  the  painters.  According  to  the  protective 
laws  of  Venice,  Diirer  was  obliged  to  pay  the  tax  for  practising 
his  art  of  painting.  The  "  Feast  of  the  Garlands,"  painted  for 
the  German  Merchants'  Church,  vindicated  his  position  as  a 
painter  and  made,  as  he  says,  a  gentleman  of  him.  He  painted 
others  and  lingered  in  Venice,  tempted,  perhaps,  by  the  offer 
from  the  city  of  a  position  and  salary  if  he  would  take  up  a 
permanent  residence.  Tempting  as  the  offer  must  have  been,  it 
was  declined,  and  he  wrote  promising  his  return,  but  adding, 
"  how  I  shall  freeze  after  this  sun.  Here  1  am  a  gentleman 
born ;  at  home  only  a  parasite. "  The  great  Mantegna,  on  his 
dying  bed,  asked  to  see  Diirer,  intending  to  help  him  in  some 
manner  of  bequest  of  knowledge,  but  though  Albert,  leaving 
all  engagements,  tried  to  reach  him  in  time,  the  older  painter 


204  GREAT    MASTERS 

had  passed  away,  September  13, 1506.  This,  Diirer  said,  was 
the  saddest  event  in  all  his  life.  His  anxiety  for  learning  is  one 
of  his  characteristics,  occasionally  to  the  detriment  of  his  com- 
pleted work,  in  which,  throughout,  remain  some  traces  of  the 
use  of  the  subject  as  allowing  the  solution  of  a  problem.  So 
that  he  again  wrote  that,  after  certain  work  he  should  like  to 
ride  to  Bologna  "  to  learn  the  secrets  of  the  art  of  perspective, 
which  a  man  is  willing  to  teach  me."  His  thirsting  for  knowl- 
edge was  a  desire  that  never  left  him,  and  which  at  first  is  a 
reminder  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  But  the  great  Florentine  was 
a  precursor  of  the  scientific  inquirers  of  our  later  age.  He 
studied  to  know  the  causes  of  things  as  well  as  their  effects. 
Diirer  is  anxious  to  know  that  he  may  use.  He  is  bound  to  his 
work,  and  to  provide  by  that  work  the  support  of  others.  Even 
in  his  dreams — as  expressed  in  art,  and  he  was  a  dreamer  of 
splendid  dreams — there  is  a  portion  beautiful,  perhaps,  often 
curious,  which  is  meant  to  be  of  use  as  an  appeal  to  our  delight 
in  the  rendering  of  facts.  Exactly  what  other  painting  Diirer 
made  then  in  Italy,  remains  uncertain.  There  is  the  "  Madonna 
of  the  Finch,"  and  the  "  Adam  and  Eve,"  still  retaining  the 
look  of  a  problem  in  proportions,  but  beautiful  in  modesty  and 
charm  of  feeUng.  The  profits  of  the  Italian  journey  were  con- 
siderable :  he  has  noted,  "  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  my  wed- 
lock 1  have  paid  great  debts  with  what  I  earned  at  Venice-" 


ADORATION    OF    THE    TRINITY    BY    ALL    SAINTS 

IMPERIAL    GALLERY,    VIENNA 
PHOTOGRAPH     BY     HANFSTAENGL 


D  U  R  E  R  205 

During  his  stay,  his  friend  Pirkheimer,  to  whom  he  had  ad- 
dressed the  letters  which  still  remain,  had  helped  him  with 
money,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  had  taken  care  of  his  people 
at  home.  INIuch  of  the  correspondence  is  devoted,  naturally,  to 
little  business  matters,  and  a  great  part  of  the  remainder  to 
friendly  jokes.  Many  of  them  are  amiable  reproofs  to  Pirk- 
heimer for  a  manner  of  life  of  a  very  loose  contexture. 

On  his  return,  Diirer's  reputation  increased;  outside  of  the 
burghers  of  Niirnberg,  who  gave  him  nothing,  he  received  com- 
missions for  some  of  his  famous  paintings  :  one  from  the  Elec- 
tor of  Saxony,  "  The  Martyrdom  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Saints 
by  King  Sapor  of  Persia,"  in  which  Diirer  must  have  felt  the 
joy  of  rendering  very  many  figures  according  to  his  increasing 
knowledge.  His  own  portrait  and  that  of  Pirkheimer  are  in  it 
and  he  holds  a  scroll  inscribed,  "  This  in  the  year  of  the  Lord 
1508  was  done  by  Albert  Diirer,  the  German."  For  Jacob  Hel- 
ler, of  Frankfort,  he  made  a  painting  now  destroyed.  It  cost  him 
a  whole  year's  work,  and  more  money  than  he  obtained,  so  that 
he  determined  to  give  up  painting  on  so  costly  a  scale.  "  I  shall 
stick  to  my  engraving,  and  had  I  done  so  before,  I  should  have 
been  a  richer  man  by  one  thousand  florins."  To  this  we  owe  the 
"  Saint  Eustace,"  the  great  "  Fortune  " — more  properly  called 
"  Nemesis  " — ^the  *'  Great  and  Little  Passions, "  and  he  was 
able  to  move  to  the  well-known  house  kept  memorable  on  his 


206  GREAT    MASTERS 

account.  The  first  painting  executed  for  any  one  of  his  native 
town  by  his  own  hand  was  done  in  1511,  and  is  known  as  the 
"  Adoration  of  the  Trinity  by  All  Saints."  It  is  now  in  the  Im- 
perial Gallery  at  Vienna  and  closes  the  series  of  Albert  Diirer 's 
important  paintings.  It  is  as  realistic  as  could  well  be  devised, 
and  holds  most  naturally,  in  its  lower  corner,  a  far-off  portrait 
of  the  bearded  and  gowned  painter  holding  a  frame  with  the 
inscription  :  "  Albert  Diirer  of  Niirnberg  did  this  in  the  year 
from  the  giving  birth  by  the  Virgin  1511."  The  complicated  and 
portrait-like  realism  throughout,  only  increases  the  sense  of  a 
vision  of  an  impossible  circumstance  really  occurring.  Like  the 
great  engravings  of  the  Apocalypse,  it  is  a  monument  of  the 
power  of  imagination.  Its  realities  are  held  together  by  the  fear- 
less representation  of  facts  which  we  accept  because  the  picture 
proves  them. 

But  how  out  of  the  accumulation  of  detailed  observation,  even 
with  the  help  to  our  being  freed  from  prose,  which  is  given  by 
the  charm  of  composition,  can  we  explain  the  result  of  such  a 
work  in  compelling  our  imagination  ?  That  is  Diirer's  secret, 
and  the  secret  of  very  few  men.  Through  this  power  he  has 
given  to  these  few  pieces  of  paper  on  which  are  printed  the 
great  engravings,  "  The  Knight,"  "  Melencholia,"  "  St.  Jerome," 
"  Nemesis,"  a  power  of  evoking  the  view  of  a  certain  place  with- 
in which  occurs  something  which  has  a  special  meaning,  appeal- 


VlVENTlS  •I'OTVIT  DVRERIVS-  ORA  PHI  UPPI 
MZNTEAVN  ON  •  P  OT  VITPINGERE  'UO  CTA 
AVANV5 

M 


PORTRAIT    OF    PHILIP    MELANCTHON 

ENGRAVING    ON    COPPER,    1526 


D  U  R  E  R  207 

ing  to  us  almost  at  once,  but  whose  exact  definition  is  impos- 
sible. They  are  like  the  dreams  for  which  the  prophet  and  the 
seer  were  called  in  as  interpreters.  We  see  the  stern  decision 
of  the  "  Knight,"  the  despondency  of"  Melenchoha" ;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  pleasure  in  the  accustomed  task  of  "  St.  Jerome,"  in 
his  sunlit  room,  where  all  is  in  order  even  to  the  friendly  lion 
and  the  dog  that  wags  its  ear.  But  who  are  right :  those  who 
see  in  the  armoured  knight,  on  his  steady  war-horse,  the  repre- 
sentation of  Christian  fortitude,  or  those  who  take  this  to  be  a 
stern  vision  of  the  hard-hearted  plunderers  of  the  weak,  whose 
bands,  hired  out  to  any  ruler,  ravaged  for  centuries  the  peace- 
ful lands  of  Europe  ?  Either  explanation  is  sufficient  ;  the  dream 
is  there,  read  it  who  may. 

The  great  success  of  Diirer's  art,  carried  by  commerce  through 
all  that  space  of  Europe  which  reached  by  land-ways  and  water- 
ways from  Holland  to  central  Italy  (England  and  France  being 
out  of  the  way  of  travel),  brought  its  attendant  dangers.  It 
was  not  difficult  to  forge  or  imitate  his  work ;  this  was  done  at 
once  as  soon  as  he  produced  his  first  woodcuts ;  the  forgeries 
increased  with  a  greater  circulation  of  the  originals.  He  met  the 
usual  fate  of  the  inventor  :  the  pillaging  of  his  store  of  ideas  in 
commercial  communities.  Notable  among  these  is  the  Italian 
forger  and  imitator,  the  great  Marcantonio,  who  was  like  many 
of  the  men  surrounding  the  beautiful  Raphael,  not  lifted  by 


208  GREAT    MASTERS 

art  above  the  uglier  sides  of  temperament.  Many  of  the  Ger- 
mans also  pillaged  the  great  master's  stores,  and  part  of  his  life 
was  spent  in  attempts  at  protection.  For  that  he  enlisted  the 
sympathy  and  help  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  a  protector  of 
art,  a  romantic  and  not  too  wise  ruler,  who  took  the  artist  under 
his  special  care  and  patronage  and  gave  him  work,  and  prom- 
ises to  pay,  which  ended  in  still  further  annoyances.  Among 
Maximihan's  many  projects  of  self-glorification,  fairly  due  to 
his  real  and  poetic  position,  was  one  of  a  great  series  of  engrav- 
ings made  to  depict  the  glories  of  the  Austrian  house.  For  that 
work,  among  others,  Albert  Diirer  was  engaged  and  for  some 
years  carried  out  the  drawings  and  engravings  connected  with 
the  scheme.  As  payment,  the  always  needy  Emperor  gave  him 
claims  on  the  taxes  of  Niirnberg,  unwillingly  met  by  the  city. 
The  Emperor's  sudden  death,  January,  1519,  rendered  doubt- 
ful the  continuance  of  a  pension  of  one  hundred  florins  a  year. 
In  spite  of  every  effort  on  Diirer's  part,  the  town  council  of 
Niirnberg  refused  to  pay  the  charge  of  two  hundred  florins  on 
the  taxes  of  the  city,  assigned  to  Diirer  by  the  Emperor.  The 
artist  was  then  obliged  to  turn  to  the  new  Emperor,  Charles  the 
Fifth,  of  Spain,  for  assistance,  and  for  that  to  have  personal  ac- 
cess to  him.  Therefore,  he  determined  to  travel  to  the  Nether- 
lands, to  obtain  the  recommendation  of  the  Emperor's  daugh- 
ter, Margaret,  then  governing  there,  and  also  to  meet  the  Em- 


Imago-  ERASMIROTERODA 
AM    AE)   ALBERTO -DYREROAU 
VI\AAV-  EFFIGIEM-DELINIAT  V 


ThN  KPEITTD.  TA-SYrrP.\iVv 
AVATA-AqZEI 


PORTRAIT    OF    ERASMUS 

ENGRAVING  ON  COPPER,   1526 


D  U  R  E  R  209 

peror  himself  at  his  coronation  in  Aix-la-Chapelle.  All  this  he 
managed  to  do,  obtaining  in  November,  1520,  the  Emperor's 
confirmation  of  his  yearly  pension,  on  condition,  however,  of 
relinquishing  the  claim  on  Maximilian,  charged  upon  the 
taxes  of  the  city  of  Nurnberg.  This  voyage  lasted  until  July, 
1521,  and  its  impressions  are  recorded  in  a  sketch-book  and 
diary,  a  part  of  which  still  remains,  so  that  we  have  an  intimate 
account  of  what  he  did,  what  he  saw,  what  he  paid,  and  some 
of  his  most  intimate  feelings  and  wishes. 

Durer  was  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  her  maid  Suzanna. 
Her  portrait,  their  expenses,  and  the  tips  given  to  Suzanna  are 
marked  in  the  note-book,  as  well  as  their  visits  to  great  people, 
and  to  artists  ;  also  the  stays  in  great  cities,  the  ceremonies  he 
attended,  and  certain  drawings  and  paintings  which  he  made. 
Almost  everywhere  he  was  received  according  to  his  deserts  ; 
great  and  special  honours  were  paid  to  him.  The  city  of  Ant- 
werp, as  once  before  the  city  of  Venice,  desired  him  for  a 
citizen,  offering,  as  did  Venice,  to  provide  an  income,  besides  a 
residence. 

At  Ghent  he  saw  the  great  picture  of  "  The  Adoration  of 
the  Lamb  "  by  the  two  Van  Eycks,  and  admired  it  completely. 
This,  perhaps,  of  all  paintings,  is  the  nearest  to  what  Albert 
Diirer  himself  has  done;  but  with  less  sweetness,  with  a  less 
natural  turn  toward  painting,  and  a  lesser  knowledge  of  the  mere 


210  GREAT    MASTERS 

mechanism  of  the  craft.  But  Van  Eyck's  painting  stands  as  one 
of  the  exceptional  works  of  art  and  fears  no  comparison  with 
even  greater  things.  Diirer  saw  also  the  curiosities  "  brought  to 
the  King  from  the  new  land  of  gold."  He  numbers  them  in 
detail,  saying  "  that  never  any  sight  excited  and  gratified  him 
so  much  as  these  extraordinary  products  of  that  distant  coun- 
try which  showed  art  work  of  a  subtlety  altogether  new."  What 
we  look  upon  as  barbarous  was  to  the  more  intelligent  mind  of 
Diirer  a  lesson  in  his  own  line. 

The  entire  journal  might  be  quoted,  all  the  more  that  it  con- 
sists of  drawings  marvellous  in  accuracy  and  sympathy  as  well 
as  in  details  of  food  and  lodging  accounts,  of  sales  of  engrav- 
ings, and  descriptions  of  receptions  in  Diirer's  honour.  But  it 
has  something  more  essentially  valuable,  the  noting  of  Diirer's 
aspirations  toward  a  higher  life  in  Church  and  State,  and  ex- 
plains the  meaning  of  his  own  portrait,  that  curious  look  of  the 
idealist  which  spiritualises  the  physical  resemblance  to  what 
we  have  made  traditionally  the  portrait  of  the  Saviour. 

The  Reformation  was  beginning,  and  the  sympathies  of  Diirer 
were  with  the  hopes  of  a  reformation  ;  with  very  many  a  wish  to 
overturn  most  things  in  Church  and  State ;  with  him,  apparently 
nothing  more  than  the  desire  for  the  reign  of  God  on  earth.  So 
that  though  he  buys  Luther's  tractate  for  five  white  pennies,  he 
also  gives  one  for  a  rosary,  and  visits  many  relics  which  even  in 


ST.  JOHN  AND  ST.  I' E  T  E  11 

MUNICH  GALLERY 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  HANFSTAENGL 


DURER  211 

those  days  were  considered  of  doubtful  sanctity.  He  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  thegreat  Erasmus  and  began  the  celebrated  engrav- 
ing of  his  portrait.  The  enthusiast  within  the  artist  who  portrayed 
the  exterior  man  mistook  the  character  of  the  great  writer.  He 
thought  of  Erasmus  as  a  champion  of  the  Reformation,  while 
Erasmus's  keen  literary  mind  weighed  more  carefully  the  dan- 
gers of  an  upsetting  for  the  social  fabric.  Hence  the  touching 
absurdity  of  the  appeal  to  Erasmus  entered  in  his  journal.  This 
was  written  on  Friday  before  Pentecost,  1521,  when  "  the  cry 
reached  them  at  Antwerp  that  Martin  Luther  had  been  treach- 
erously seized."  We  know  to-day  the  clever  management  of 
the  disappearance  of  the  reformer,  but  to  Diirer — and  it  was  so 
meant — it  might  be  the  work  of  murderers  and  tyrants.  So  he 
cries :  "  Oh,  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  wilt  thou  see  the  injustice, 
the  blind  tyranny  of  the  powers  now  ruling  ?  Hear  me,  O  knight 
Christ,  ride  by  the  side  of  our  Lord,  XS  ;  old  as  thou  art,  and 
but  a  feeble  creature,  thou  too  mayest  win  the  martyr's  crown  : 
I  heard  thee  say  that  thou  wilt  give  thyself  only  two  years  for 
work ;  employ  them  well  for  the  love  of  the  Gospel  and  the 
true  faith.  Oh,  Erasmus,  may  God  thy  judge  be  glorified  in 
thee  1  As  of  David  it  is  written,  so  do  thou  slay  Goliath,  for 
the  Lord  will  be  with  thee  in  the  Christian  Church.  Glory  to 
the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  one  God,  Amen ! "  In  his 
sadness  about  Luther  he  appeals  in  prayer  to  the  Lord  Jesus 


212  GREAT    MASTERS 

to  collect  his  widely  wandering  sheep  from  all  lands,  some  in 
the  Roman  Church,  some  among  Indians,  Muscovites,  and 
Greeks,  separated  from  each  other  by  the  pretensions  of  Popes. 
He  prays  that  in  place  of  Luther  another  may  be  raised  able  to 
gather  all  the  world  into  the  faith  and  bring  Turks,  pagans, 
and  Indians  within  the  Christian  fold.  "  But  Lord,  Thou  whose 
Son  Jesus  Christ  died  by  the  priests,  hast  willed  that  His  fol- 
lower, Martin  Luther,  may  be  killed  treacherously  through  the 
Pope's  hirelings  ;  raise  again  the  spirit  of  this  apostle.  Give  us 
a  new  Jerusalem  adorned  with  the  splendours  as  written  in  the 
Apocalypse,  a  new  evangel  cleared  of  human  commentaries." 

It  may  be  that  Dlirer's  feelings  as  well  as  opinions  reached 
the  powers  that  ruled,  for  the  Lady  Margaret  and  the  Emperor 
do  not  seem  to  have  continued  their  protection  upon  him.  Yet 
he  had  attained  his  object  and  returned  home  to  Niirnberg 
with  the  continuance  of  his  appointment  as  painter  to  the 
Kaiser,  an  important  official  position  even  if  it  led  to  no  di- 
rect practical  advantage.  Niirnberg  was  much  affected  by  the 
new  movement.  Melancthon  was  there  and  taught,  and  we 
know  some  few  things  about  Diirer  through  some  of  the  re- 
former's writings.  All  that  he  said  of  him  is  in  the  meaning 
that  I  have  tried  to  give — the  record  of  a  noble  and  spiritual 
nature. 

An  interesting  record  of  the  state  of  mind  existing  then,  as 


ST.    MARK    AND    ST.    PAUL 

MUNICH    GALLERY 
PHOTOGRAPH      BY      HANFSTAENGL 


DURER  213 

well  as  in  our  day  of  greater  freedom,  is  the  trial  of  several  of 
Diirer's  assistants  for  holding  opinions  dangerous  to  Church  and 
State,  opinions  as  obnoxious  to  the  reformers  as  to  the  most 
conservative  of  the  older  view.  These  men  are  well  known,  too ; 
we  give  them  the  name  of  the  "Little  Masters";  and  their  work 
merges  gently  into  all  the  religious  images  of  a  time  which  still 
kept  in  touch  with  the  mediaeval  past.  But  the  two  Behams  and 
George  Pencz,  three  of  these  assistants,  were  perfectly  willing  to 
acknowledge  that  the  existence  of  God  was  to  them  a  matter 
of  great  doubt;  that  they  "  knew  nothing "  of  Christ  and  of  His 
teachings  in  the  Bible,  and  of  baptism  and  other  doubtful  graces, 
and  that  all  they  believed  in  were  views  of  a  new  form  of  society 
more  or  less  socialistic,  or  as  we  should  say  to-day,  based  on 
anarchy.  They  were  exiled  for  a  time,  but  returned  later  and 
seemed  to  have  remained  the  somewhat  inoffensive  citizens  that 
artists  mostly  are.  Diirer  remained  in  the  same  sentiments.  His 
work  was  less,  for  he  was  ailing  since  his  return.  He  still  worked 
upon  theories  of  drawing  and  proportion  and  questions  of  en- 
gineering, and  he  painted  the  four  great  images  of  John  and 
Peter,  Mark  and  Paul,  which  he  presented  to  the  city,  a  city 
never  too  kindly  to  him  in  the  way  of  patronage.  They  were 
sold  long  ago  and  are  in  Munich,  but  the  city  retained  the 
inscriptions  the  painter  had  attached  to  the  pictures.  In  these 
he  asked  his  fellow-citizens  to  "  hear  these  four  right  worthy 


214  GREAT    MASTERS 

men  Peter,  John,  Paul,  and  Mark,"  and  wrote  texts  from  the 
second  of  Peter,  the  first  of  John,  the  second  of  Paul  to 
Timothy,  and  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  Mark,  which  contain  warnings  against  false  prophets  and 
teachers  of  heresy,  repudiators  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  blas- 
phemers, and  arrogant  scribes. 

On  April  6,  1528,  Diirer's  continued  illness  ended  in  death 
suddenly  and  peacefully.  As  Luther  said  of  him,  "  Christ  took 
him  away  in  good  time  from  stormy  days  destined  to  become 
more  stormy  still."  Praise  and  regret  followed  him.  The  great 
city  slowly  learned  to  understand  the  value  of  her  greatest 
citizen,  and  to-day  his  memory  is  sacred  with  Germany. 

In  his  works,  "Niirnberg's  hand  goes  through  every  land," 
according  to  the  proverb.  But  the  German  side  of  his  work  is 
its  limitation.  The  national  or  race  side  of  any  work  of  art  is  its 
weakness.  What  is  called  German  is  probably  nothing  more 
than  a  form  of  less  lengthy  civilisation.  The  reason  of  the  su- 
periority of  Italian  expression  in  art  is  the  extreme  antiquity 
of  its  origins,  which  for  thousands  of  years  have  never  aimed  at 
a  national,  but,  on  the  contrary,  at  a  general  human  expression. 
Not  that  Diirer  was  guilty  of  error  in  this,  but  his  habits  were 
those  of  his  training,  a  training  struggling  into  shape.  His 
personal  expression  is  not  exactly  Teutonic,  rather  perhaps  that 
of  his  Hungarian  ancestry.  Whatever  may  be  the  hidden  causes 


DURER  215 

upon  which  his  own  efforts  worked,  he  is  one  of  the  world's 
great  masters.  His  fortunes  were  so  shaped  by  duty  as  to 
prevent  his  having  fully  obtained  the  desire  of  his  life  to 
become  a  painter  equal  to  his  extraordinary  capacities.  But  the 
history  of  engraving  cannot  be  understood  without  him.  The 
work  of  his  life  is  behind  every  print  we  see. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    ARTIST 


HOi^USAI 


tx 


1r 


w   ^:^;*] 


SIGNATURE    OF    HOKUSAl 


HOKUSAI 


We  know,  though  we  do  not  always  have  time  to  think  of 
it,  that  all  forms  of  art  are  merely  varieties  of  language — the 
signs  of  meanings,  not  the  things  themselves — and  require 
two  factors  almost  to  exist,  the  person  addressing  and  the  per- 
son who  is  addjfessed. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  the  question  of  an  essay  about 
Hokusai,  or  any  artist  whose  form  of  art  is  far  away  from 
ours,  should  divide  into  paths  which  tend  away  from  a  com- 
mon point.  Were  this  essay  to  appeal  only  to  artists,  one  would 
need  but  draw  their  attention  to  some  point  of  technique,  so 
that  they  could  gauge  the  merit  of  the  person  whose  handi- 
work, whose  language,  this  was.  For  then  the  question  of  what 
might  almost  be  called  the  meaning  of  the  picture  could  be 
dropped;  a  mere  movement  of  a  pencil  or  of  a  brush,  the 
peculiar  manner  in  which  it  is  used,  being  to  artists  a  proof  of 
the  quaUty  of  the  person  who  does  it.  Artists  know  that  it 
either  takes  very  great  study  or  very  great  natural  capacity,  or 
both,  to  make  certain  movements  of  the  hand  over  a  canvas 
and  a  bit  of  paper.  They  know  just  how  complicated  is  the 


220  GREAT    MASTERS 

machinery  which  is  to  be  set  in  motion  for  these  feats  of 
sleight  of  hand,  and  it  is  often  what  seems  the  least  impor- 
tant, or,  rather,  less  showy,  which  would  be  their  test.  But  in 
considering  Hokusai  for  others  than  artists  there  is  a  necessity 
to  explain  away  some  of  his  rather  strange  things,  to  diminish 
their  strangeness  by  this  explanation,  and  thereby  make  this 
foreigner  speak,  after  all,  a  language  not  so  far  removed  from 
our  own.  This  double  current  of  statement  is  in  a  great  degree 
difficult.  What  I  mean  to  do  is  to  be  as  little  didactic,  as  little 
controversial  as  possible,  because,  after  all,  the  appreciation  of 
art  is  and  must  remain  a  question  of  sympathy,  and  the  appeal 
art  makes  is  and  must  ever  be  a  personal  one.  I  should  be  de- 
lighted to  suppose  that  everybody  saw  things  as  I  do,  and 
I  should  not  wish  to  increase  the  opposition  which  a  very 
healthy  mind,  sensitive  to  art,  often  feels  before  the  very  best 
things  that  there  are.  One  of  the  things  that  we  learn  is  that 
the  merit  of  a  work  of  art  does  not  depend  upon  our  liking  it, 
but  yet  that  we  must  have  some  side  in  us  to  which  there  can 
be  an  appeal.  We  may,  for  instance,  not  feel  in  the  mood  for 
some  of  the  greater  music  ;  we  may  not  feel  in  the  mood  for 
the  music  that  moves  us  at  times  so  deeply — all  of  which 
merely  means  that  there  are  moments  and  times  for  things, 
and  especially  that  the  great  things  are  not  the  commonplace 
or  the  light  ones,  which  at  times  we  need  also. 


HOKUSAI  221 

I  can  remember — some  fifty  years  ago — seeing  for  the  first 
time  some  of  Hokusai's  woodcuts.  I  saw  them  in  the  usual 
way,  coming  upon  them  by  chance  among  Japanese  curios  in 
some  shop,  and  though  I  had  seen  a  little  of  Japanese  work, 
such  as  we  know  in  lacquer  and  porcelain,  these  were  the  first 
drawings.  I  can  very  well  remember  the  various  impressions 
and  rapid  conclusions  of  the  moment.  I  noticed  in  the  first 
place  the  Japanese  value  of  quality  analogous  to  what  we  see 
in  the  surface  and  material  of  lacquer  or  porcelain  as  con- 
nected with  its  design.  With  us,  of  European  descent,  this  feel- 
ing for  quality  has  diminished  very  greatly  for  several  cen- 
turies. I  noticed,  for  instance,  how  intimately  connected  was 
the  surface  and  texture  of  the  paper  with  the  manner  of  mak- 
ing the  woodcut.  The  woodcuts  of  Hokiisai  were  not  the 
finest,  and  there  were  some  by  other  men  more  refined  in  exe- 
cution ;  but  all  these  things  were  remarkable  from  their  tech- 
nique, extremely  superior  to  anything  that  we  did.  We  had 
no  level  of  engraving,  and  no  printing,  and  certainly  no  colour 
printing,  which  could  begin  to  compare  with  the  poorer  speci- 
mens. As  to  the  finer  ones,  they  seemed  impossible  at  first  to 
understand.  There  were  delicacies  of  impression  that  were 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  finest  execution  by  hands 
— I  mean  the  more  subtle  touch  of  a  human  hand.  There 
were  broad  washes  apparently,  which  looked  as  if  made  by  a 


222  GREAT    MASTERS 

brush ;  there  were  entangled  Hnes  as  clean  and  distinct  as  if 
made  by  an  etcher.  The  mere  mechanical  execution  of  every- 
thing was  superior  to  anything  that  we  did,  and,  to  find  a  par- 
allel, one  would  have  to  go  back  a  couple  of  centuries  to  the 
impressions  of  Rembrandt's  etchings  or  Albert  Diirer's  en- 
gravings— each  of  these  rare  and  exceptional  work  by  the 
rarest  and  most  exceptional  of  men.  And  yet  it  was  evident 
that  all  the  work  was  more  or  less  cheap  and  not  outside  of 
very  simple  means.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  accept  a 
level  of  superior  artistic  culture  among  the  men  who  had 
done  these  things.  The  drawing,  in  its  intimate  connection  with 
execution  in  the  engi-aving,  was  very  near  to  what  I  had  seen 
of  the  actual  drawings  of  the  old  masters ;  and  of  the  wood- 
cuts, Hokusai's  bore  a  singular  likeness  to  the  work  of  Albert 
Diirer.  There  seemed  to  be  the  greatest  possible  economy  of 
effort,  and  of  what  might  be  called  work.  Occasionally,  on  the 
contrary,  where  it  might  please  or  amuse,  there  was  a  lavish 
expenditure  of  care  about  the  detail,  as  if  either  was  a  mere 
matter  of  choice,  and  very  careful  detail  or  very  broad  gen- 
eralisation was  to  be  used  for  its  real  value  and  not  to  obey 
some  outside-imposed  rule.  Throughout  there  was  an  astound- 
ing amount  of  observation.  I  did  not  know  then,  as  I  have 
learned  since,  how  much  of  this  was  collective  and  belonged 
to  many  of  the  artists  in  common.  I  followed  with  delight  the 


HOKUSAI  223 

clearer  perception  on  the  part  of  the  draughtsmen  of  things 
that  I  had  noticed  more  imperfectly  than  they — the  growth  of 
plants,  the  flight  of  birds,  the  anatomy  of  insects,  the  easy 
motion  of  the  human  body,  or  of  the  body  of  animals ;  and 
the  subjects  ranged  from  history  and  rehgion  to  the  most 
trivial  details  of  life  and  the  habits  of  the  smallest  birds  or 
insects.  There  seemed  to  be  an  almost  fierce  passion  for  the 
universal  life  about  us,  and  our  drawings  of  to-day  appeared 
narrow  and  stupidly  limited  in  their  range  by  comparison. 
When  some  one  first  translated  for  me  the  signature  of  Hokii- 
sai,  which  is  upon  so  many  of  his  drawings,  "  Hokiisai,  the  Old 
Man  Crazy  about  Painting,"  I  felt  that  my  first  instinct  was 
borne  out  by  the  story  of  the  master.  There  seemed  to  be  with 
him  a  feverish  necessity  to  give  some  account,  careful  or  hur- 
ried, of  observations  which  he  felt  were  infinite,  and  the  fear 
also  that  he  might  not  be  able  to  put  down  a  sufficient  number 
of  these  notes.  This  passion,  this  being  carried  away  by  a  fierce 
desire  of  recording  everything,  was  mingled  with  a  something 
of  detachment  from  the  object,  as  if  to  his  eye  all  was  equally 
part  of  a  great  pageant ;  as  if  a  part  of  himself  kept  aloof  and 
recorded  merely,  without  being  swayed  into  judgment.  To  me 
this  was  not  the  most  pleasant  side,  and  I  still  have  that  one 
objection ;  but  such  a  disposition  could  never  belong  to  any 
but  a  strong  mind,  the  mind  of  an  observer  reticent  as  to  giv- 


224  GREAT    MASTERS 

ing  himself  away,  and  yet  protecting  himself  through  his  very 
personality.  Something  like  that  one  sees  in  Albert  Diirer ; 
something  like  that  one  sees  in  the  portraits  of  Velasquez. 
With  this  self-imposed  necessity  of  finding  a  way  of  represent- 
ing everything  with  apparently  equal  interest,  it  seemed  but 
natural  that  special  artificial  methods  must  be  employed,  and, 
therefore,  I  was  less  annoyed  than  I  might  have  been  other- 
wise by  methods  and  catches,  as  it  were,  which  I  supposed  to 
be  the  master's  shorthand,  not  knowing  exactly  what  he  had 
of  his  own  in  the  way  of  conventionality,  and  what  he  had 
taken  from  others — his  predecessors.  Of  course  1  knew  enough 
to  know  that  every  form  of  art,  and  every  man  within  that 
form,  fills  up  the  gaps  of  his  want  of  full  observation  by  some 
conventionality,  as  Hokusai  does  ;  because  of  his  being  a  very 
finite  being,  with  a  very  short  time  in  comparison  with  the 
duration  of  the  world,  for  instance.  Every  school  that  I  had 
seen  had  accepted  or  invented  some  of  the  conventional,  some 
way  of  filling  up  gaps.  My  studies  had  been  somewhat  in  the 
way  of  classifying  these  variations,  so  that  one  or  many  more 
could  not  surprise  me ;  and  I  had  learned  the  first  great  les- 
son, in  that  the  fact  of  my  being  more  or  less  pleased  was  not 
the  manner  of  measuring  the  intellectual  value  of  a  work  of 
the  mind. 

The  record  of  these  impressions  of  mine,  far  back — at  first 


HOKUSAI  225 

sight — is  perhaps  the  best  explanation  that  T  can  give  of  the 
merits  of  Hokusai's  work.  At  that  time  we  had  merely  the 
prints  and  a  very  few  drawings  of  paintings,  mostly  of  mere 
commercial  manufacture.*  Fuller  acquaintance  with  the  Japa- 
nese drawings  and  paintings  themselves  was  almost  impossi- 
ble out  of  Japan.  Since  then  much  has  been  brought  to  us  out 
of  old  Japan,  and  to-day  we  can  understand  very  well  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  conventionalities  we  see  in  all  Japanese  prints, 
drawings,  or  pictures.  It  is  essential  to  have  some  idea  of  how 
these  conventionalities  are  preserved,  and  how  a  great  part  of 
that  extraordinary  dexterity  is  secured.  I  only  know  a  few 
points  of  the  training,  and  those  in  the  case  of  one  only  of  the 
schools,  but  I  take  it  that  the  differences  are  merely  those  that 
result  from  the  different  character  of  the  schools,  and  not  from 
their  ideas  of  what  training  should  be  or  of  their  general 
aims. 

Judged  by  his  work,  it  is  evident  that  the  Japanese  painter 
is  especially  not  ashamed  of  paying  the  greatest  attention  to 
his  methods.  One  can  see  in  some  of  Hokusai's  work  the  most 
mechanical  reproduction  of  detail,  some,  I  think,  with  the  use 
of  the  stencil ;  in  others  we  observe  a  whole  drawing  executed — 

*  The  prints  from  Hokusai's  drawings  were  among  the  first  to  meet  Western  eyes,  and 
made  this  powerful  impression,  difficult  to  realise  by  some  Japanese,  who  knew  of  so  many 
other  manners  of  their  own  art. 


226  GREAT    MASTERS 

a  perfectly  incomprehensible  marvel — with  a  finger-nail  full  of 
ink.  I  don't  know  how  many  of  our  artists  could  do  this  with 
one  or  any  brushes.  We  see  the  broadest  use  of  a  very  big 
brush  with  very  wet  ink,  or  with  very  dry  ink,  and  we  also  see 
the  softest  kind  of  wash  and  the  hardest  and  finest  line,  so 
drawn  that  to  our  average  eye  it  looks  like  the  work  of  a 
graver  or  the  imprint  of  a  wood-block. 

The  mastery  of  the  hand-work  is — very  fairly — a  great  source 
of  pride,  so  much  so  as  to  be  a  matter  of  joke.  Paintings  have 
been  done  with  furniture ;  with  stools — with  one's  clothes 
slapped  into  a  bucket  of  ink  and  brushed  against  the  paper. 
These  jokes  are  manners  of  showing  extreme  facility  of  com- 
mand and  even  contempt,  as  it  were,  of  material :  the  con- 
tempt that  one  has  when  one  has  had  all  due  respect  for  it. 
Extreme  rapidity  has  been  aimed  at — claimed  as  a  matter  of 
glory.  My  Japanese  servant  once  brought  me  as  a  present  a 
fan  painted  by  one  of  the  considerable  artists  of  Japan — Kiosai, 
who  died  recently — which  fan  had  been  painted  within  so  many 
minutes,  and  was  one  of  the  very  many  that  he  had  painted  on 
the  same  evening.  On  that  evening  he  had  executed  on  a  fine 
clean  gold  screen  a  peculiar  drawing  in  India  ink — I  mean 
by  drawing  a  sort  of  painting — as  a  manner  of  bravado.  He  had 
taken  off  his  outside  silk  coat — the  short  jacket  of  ceremony 
■ — and  throwing  it  into  a  bucket  of  prepared  India  ink,  he  had 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  227 

used  the  body  and  the  suddenly  loosened  sleeves  as  one  would 
a  brush. 

It  is  clear  that  only  an  extraordinary  carefulness  of  training 
allows  the  Japanese  artist  to  do  the  very  beautiful  work  that 
we  know,  looking  at  it  as  merely  work,  or  to  perform  the  feats 
of  bravado  I  have  mentioned. 

In  the  school  of  the  Kanos — a  family  of  painters  still  exist 
ing,  I  think,  and  which  has  had  four  centuries  of  continued 
existence,  Kano  succeeding  Kano — something  like  the  follow- 
ing is  the  method  of  instruction :  There  were  a  small  number 
of  rooms  occupied  by  the  master  and  the  students,  the  master 
seldom  entering,  if  at  all,  the  room  where  the  students  worked. 
One  of  these,  a  long  corridor  next  to  that  and  the  master,  was 
devoted  to  pupils  of  medium  grade,  among  whose  duties  was 
that  of  attending  to  the  wants  of  the  master.  In  the  largest 
room,  what  would  be  properly  the  "  atelier, "  the  studio,  the  stu- 
dents of  the  highest  grade  had  the  best  seats  nearest  the  win- 
dows, and  the  new  pupils  had  their  places  in  the  dark  parts 
of  the  room.  The  floors  are  covered  by  mats,  always  of  a  regu- 
lar size  :  six  feet  by  three.  The  space  of  two  of  these  was  given 
to  each  pupil ;  there  he  kept  his  desk,  his  box  of  colours,  and 
whatever  else  he  needed.  Of  course,  he  lay  or  sat  on  the  mat 
to  paint  or  draw.  Most  requirements  of  the  school  were  unwrit- 
ten, orally  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  like  cer- 


228  GREAT    MASTERS 

tain  of  the  secrets  of  touch  and  of  handhng ;  for  everything  in 
Japan  has  secrets  which  are  guarded  with  superstitious  care 
and  importance.  Certain  written  rules  were  as  follows  :  1st. 
That  the  students  should  diligently  apply  themselves  to  study 
by  day  and  night.  2nd.  That  they  should  take  the  utmost  pre- 
caution against  fire.  3rd.  That,  except  to  discharge  business  for 
the  master,  they  should  not  go  out  of  the  house  without  per- 
mission ;  and  that  in  the  event  of  any  one's  being  obliged  to 
pass  a  night  away  from  school  a  certificate  must  be  brought 
from  the  proprietor  of  the  house  where  he  had  stayed.  4th.  That 
strict  simphcity  should  be  observed  on  all  festive  occasions,  as, 
for  example,  the  admission  of  a  new  student  for  the  "  grant  of 
one  character,"  of  which  I  shall  speak  later.  5th.  That  except 
on  holidays  or  for  inevitable  business,  visits  must  not  be  paid 
to  houses  in  the  same  compound.  6th.  That  students  should 
neither  feast  nor  quarrel  among  themselves.  7th.  That  they 
should  be  at  their  desks  by  seven  in  the  morning,  and  not  lie 
down  before  ten  at  night.  8th.  That  before  retiring  to  rest  each 
student  should  take  his  water-bowl — for  remember,  this  is  all 
water-colour  work — to  the  bamboo  corridor  outside.  Lastly,  the 
students  of  the  Kano  were  strictly  forbidden  to  associate  with 
artists  of  the  Chinese  school,  nor  were  they  allowed  to  study 
the  paintings  of  the  Ukioye,  an  opposing  and  more  reahstic 
school,  of  which  Hoktisai  is  a  prominent  example. 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  229 

The  course  of  instruction  was  quite  as  rigid — sixty  pictures 
by  a  famous  artist  of  the  Kanos,  reproduced  in  five  volumes 
and  duphcated,  were  kept  in  the  school  library  for  models.  The 
student  first  made  a  careful  copy  of  one  of  these  pictures  ;  from 
this  copy  he  made  several  others,  until  knowing  thoroughly 
every  detail  and  every  stroke  of  that  picture,  he  was  able  to 
submit  a  final  copy  to  the  master's  judgment.  Each  one  of  the 
sixty  pictures  was  singly  studied  in  the  same  way,  and  this  was 
supposed  to  occupy  the  first  year  and  a  half  of  apprenticeship. 
The  master's  pictures  of  flowers  and  birds  occupied  six  months 
more  with  the  same  detailed  study  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 
Then  the  pupil  began  to  study  promiscuously  works  of  other 
masters  of  the  school,  and  he  was  allowed  to  use  colour.  After 
three  years  a  proficient  student  was  able  to  assist  in  the  me- 
chanical part  of  the  master's  picture,  filling  in  the  flat  colour  of 
the  dresses,  etc.  Members  of  the  Kano  family,  when  seven  or 
eight  years  old,  were  taught  to  paint  simple  forms,  such  as  egg- 
plants and  melons.  They  learned  shuan,  which  means  strength 
of  the  muscles  of  the  arm.  As  they  gradually  advanced  they 
were  taught  to  draw  after  designs — thirty-six  in  all — made  by 
Yosen  for  beginners.  Their  chief  object  was  to  develop  skill 
in  the  use  of  the  brush.  After  the  eighth  year  the  pupil  had 
probably  made  himself  worthy  of  the  grant  of  one  character  of 
his  master's  name.  After  the  pupil  had  received  the  name  of 


230  GREAT    MASTERS 

the  house,  he  had  one  more  degree  to  get.  Each  Kano  had  two 
names  besides  Kano.  For  example,  Hogai,  who  died  a  few 
years  ago,  and  whom  I  met  in  Japan,  was  a  pupil  under  Sho- 
shenin  Yoshinobu,  and  was  called  Shokai  when  he  received  his 
first  degree,  and  afterward  Yoshimichi.  In  the  first  name  the 
character  "  Sho  "  is  the  first  letter  of  the  name  of  his  master's 
house ;  in  the  second  name  "  Yoshi "  is  the  first  character  of 
his  master's  personal  name  Yoshinobu.  This  was  not  only  a 
comphment,  but  a  form  of  intellectual  adoption,  and  a  manner 
of  asserting  or  claiming,  or,  as  is  said  out  West,  "  allowing " 
that  one  belonged  to  a  certain  school. 

The  course  of  study  in  a  Kano  school  usually  took  over  ten 
years,  and  the  average  age  of  graduates  was  thirty.  This  ex- 
traordinary pursuit  of  mechanical  excellence,  this  learning  to 
render  each  classified  fact  in  nature  by  a  certain  touch,  a  certain 
set  of  lines,  a  certain  meeting  of  lines  at  certain  angles — the 
Kano  school,  for  instance,  teaches  a  different  touch  for  relig- 
ious and  secular  painting — all  this  has  ended  in  so  drilling  the 
pupil  as  to  make  him  find  original  departure  difficult.  The 
school  system  has  been  carried  out  with  such  extravagant  fidel- 
ity that  weaker  men  have  been  more  or  less  crushed  out.  But 
they  have  been  taught  to  preserve  a  perfectly  respectable  sur- 
face manner,  and  to  keep  within  the  hmits  of  good  taste.  For 
originality  is  only  valuable  when  attended  by  a  force  of  mind 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  231 

that  uses  it  solely  as  a  means.  The  small  mind  is  tempted  to 
suppose  that  it  is  an  end.  And  so  in  much  Japanese  work  one 
misses  the  sensation  of  freshness  and  freedom  which  only  the 
better  men  give. 

I  do  not  speak  of  this  with  any  regret,  for  it  will  always  be 
a  question  in  teaching  whether  it  be  not  well  that  the  weaker 
minds  should  gain  the  support  of  a  rule,  and  lose  as  much  as 
possible  their  chance  of  developing  what  is  not  worth  saving. 
But,  however  true  or  false  these  views  may  be,  this  account  of 
actual  training  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  extreme  persistency 
of  certain  conventionalities.  I  might  have  added  that  brushes 
of  certain  shapes,  ink  of  certain  colours,  the  use  of  certain 
paints — all  these  were  part  of  the  inheritance  of  the  school. 

That  name  which  Hokusai  has  signed  so  often,  and  which  is 
written  on  his  tomb,  "  The  Old  Man  Mad  about  Painting,"  is 
also  explained  by  the  habit  of  taking  the  nom  de  plumCy  or 
rather,  in  this  we  may  say,  no7?i  de  pinceau. 

The  artist  Hokusai  signs  at  first  "  Sori."  He  seems  at  that 
moment  to  have  been  working  in  the  workshop  of  Sori ;  but 
before  that  he  signed  himself  "  Shunro,"  from  the  name  of 
Shunsho,  with  whom  he  appears  first  to  have  studied.  He  was 
then  already  a  young  man,  and  not  such  a  child  as  I  have  de- 
scribed, going  to  the  school  of  a  master  at  a  possible  age  of 
eight  or  ten.  It  is  at  eighteen,  apparently,  that  Hokusai  enters 


232  GREAT    MASTERS 

the  studio  of  Shunsho ;  "  plays  in  the  gate  of  the  master,"  as 
the  Japanese  wording  is.  He  seems  to  have  done  some  work, 
and  learned  engraving  on  wood  before  that ;  but  all  this  is  fairly 
obscure.  Only  it  might  seem  that  his  father  had  some  artistic 
or  intellectual  ambition,  and  that  his  family  name — that  is  to 
say,  of  his  father's  family — was  Kawamura.  That  is  the  name 
chosen  by  his  daughter  for  the  tomb  erected  to  him  some  time 
after  his  death. 

Shunsho  is,  therefore,  his  first  master,  and  he  was  trained — 
as  properly  belonged  to  his  class  of  life  and  apparent  habits 
— in  the  school  sometimes  called  the  Vulgar  School  of  Paint- 
ing, "  the  Painters  of  the  Floating  World" :  that  is  to  say,  the 
ordinary  world  that  moves  all  about  us.  This  school  is  known 
to  us  outsiders  more  than  any  other  Japanese  school  of  art,  be- 
cause its  painters  took  to  wood  engraving  and  reproductions 
by  colour  impressions,  of  which  many  repetitions  have  reached 
us.  They  became  more  and  more  interesting  and  vigorous, 
while  the  older  schools  narrowed  the  number  of  their  personal- 
ities at  the  end  of  the  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this. 

Shunsho  was  one  of  the  important  persons  of  this  school  when 
Hokiisai  entered  his  studio,  about  the  year  1775.  This  train- 
ing and  these  tendencies,  while  giving  to  Hokiisai  perhaps  a 
greater  chance  to  break  away  from  rules  and  to  indulge  in  his 
passion  for  universal  representation,  explain  also  a  very  fre- 


HOKUSAI  233 

quent  want  of  refinement,  as  compared  with  some  of  the  other 
and  older  artists,  and  also  perhaps — though  it  must  have  been 
more  or  less  in  his  nature — a  certain  willingness  to  change 
style  and  manner  according  to  either  the  fashion  of  the  day  or 
his  own  momentary  fancies. 

The  time  of  Hokiisai  is  the  end  of  an  epoch  in  Japanese  his- 
tory known  to  us  all  in  general  as  the  time  of  national  isolation. 
This  singular  experiment  was  closed,  almost  immediately  after 
his  death,  by  our  coming  to  Japan  and  insisting  upon  the  open- 
ing of  the  country  for  commerce  and  outside  circumstances. 
But  the  curious  policy  of  isolation  and  of  immobility  inflicted 
upon  an  exceedingly  impressionable  race,  who  were  in  reality 
extremely  fond  of  every  novelty,  ended  by  withdrawing  the 
higher  life  and  aspirations  of  the  country  from  the  ordinary 
knowledge  of  every  day.  Whether  thinkers,  students,  artists,  and 
literary  men  of  the  higher  type  were  or  were  not  in  sympathy 
with  the  despotic  government  which  held  Japan  under  a  system- 
atic control,  their  retirement  allowed  them  no  such  contact  with 
the  world  in  general  that  an  artist  like  Hokiisai  could  get  the 
benefit  of  appreciation,  and  I  might  say  of  education,  from  the 
higher  and  more  intellectual  classes.  It  was  every  one's  fault ; 
it  was  not  especially  Hokiisai's.  Besides  that,  the  greater  side  of 
this  system  of  government,  the  exaggeration  of  feudal  pride  and 
duty  and  military  obedience,  placed  also  a  wall  between  the 


234  GREAT    MASTERS 

ordinary  people,  to  whom  Hokusai  belonged,  and  the  governing 
classes,  through  whose  patronage  he  might  have  obtained  en- 
couragement and  fairer  living,  and  the  sort  of  training  that 
comes  of  intercourse  with  superiors.  All  the  more,  perhaps,  has 
he  been  near  the  people  and  built  into  his  enormous  work — for 
his  drawings  have  been  counted  up  to  30,000— the  stories,  the 
traditions,  the  legends,  the  habits,  the  jokes,  and  manners  of  the 
average  people. 

Another  thing  that  affected  him,  as  it  affected  other  artists, 
was  the  habit  of  representing  the  theatre ;  and  one  sees  with  him 
a  certain  theatrical  exaggeration  in  gesture  and  character  ren- 
dering which  gives  a  doubtful  reality :  in  many  cases  the  drama 
is  true,  but  it  is  true  through  a  stage  rendering.  There  is, 
therefore,  with  him  something  like  caricature,  and  one  feels  it 
very  much  in  the  rendering  of  such  things  as  are  laughable,  and 
in  those  subjects  in  which  the  special  character  of  the  painter 
and  his  ironical  observation  of  life  has  made  the  turn  toward 
caricature  a  true  one,  representing  life  in  a  rapid  way. 

After  all,  this  is  only  another  way  of  representing  truth, 
or  rather  of  using  truth  as  a  manner  of  giving  one's  impres- 
sions. 

Hokusai's  extreme  interest  in  everything  that  he  saw  with 
the  external  eye,  or  the  eye  of  imagination,  has  made  him  pass 
from  one  to  another  of  many  styles  which  he  had  studied  in 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  235 

others  or  developed  for  himself.  Yet,  through  almost  everything, 
there  is  a  special  personal  character  which  one  recognises  as 
Hokiisai's.  The  story  of  his  artistic  life  represents  his  varia- 
tions. 

After  a  time  he  leaves  the  studio  and  the  training  of 
Shunsho ;  it  is  said  after  some  particular  quarrel  fastened  upon 
him  by  another  more  authorised  pupil,  who  said  that  Hokusai 
degraded  the  methods  of  the  master.  It  appears  that  he  had 
painted  some  sort  of  a  sign  for  a  print-seller,  who,  estimating  it 
very  highly,  had  it  well  placed  in  his  shop,  when  a  jealous  and 
older  student,  upon  seeing  it,  tore  it  up  to  save,  as  he  said,  the 
honour  of  the  studio  of  Shunsho. 

But  it  is  more  certain  that  he  was  dismissed  by  his  master, 
Shunsho,  because  of  his  secretly  studying  also  under  a  master 
of  the  Kano  school ;  naturally,  a  grievous  offence.  This  is  the 
beginning  of  Hokusai's  liberty,  which  will  come  up  under  what- 
ever system  he  is  willing  to  impose  upon  himself 

He  is  next  represented  under  the  name  of  "  Sori,"  which 
begins  with  the  date  of  1798.  He  had  been  fascinated  by  the 
cliarm  of  the  style  of  Tawaraya  Sori's  painting,  and  this  name 
records  the  influence.  I  do  not  know  of  his  having  entered 
Sori's  studio — "  Tai-sei-ken,"  "  the  House  facing  the  Blue." 
Then  on  New  Year's  day  of  1799  he  signs  "  Sori,  who  has 
changed  his  name  to  Hokusai."  He  has  abandoned  this  name 


236  GREAT    MASTERS 

of  Sori  to  his  pupil  Soji,  and  now  in  1800  he  calls  himself 
Hokusai  again. 

This  is  the  tradition  of  what  had  happened.  He  had  been 
reduced  to  the  most  abject  poverty.  He  had  even  taken  to 
peddling  cheap  food,  and  later  cheap  almanacs.  "  Once,  as  he 
made  his  way  through  the  busy  quarters  of  Yedo,  he  came 
across  his  former  teacher,  Shunsho,  accompanied  by  his  wife. 
He  felt  abashed  and  turned  away." 

"  Just  then  a  man  came  to  him  and  asked  him  to  paint  a 
flag  for  the  Boys'  Festival " — a  great  day  in  Japan — the  fifth  of 
May.  "  The  man  was  pleased  and  rewarded  the  artist  with  two 
Ryos." 

Looking  upon  this  as  a  turn  of  luck, "  he  cast  away  the  mean 
thoughts  of  a  mean  life,  and  stood  erect  among  the  wants  of 
poverty." 

"  He  swore  to  the  God  Myoken,"  the  god  of  the  North  Star, 
patron  of  intellectual  occupations,  "  to  make  painting  his  pro- 
fession through  life."  Hence  his  new  name,  Hokusai,  which  has 
prevailed  over  all  the  others,  even  over  that  of  "  Manji,"  the 
name  of  the  mystic  character  3^  which  we  call  to-day  the 
"  Swastika,"  emblematic  enough,  since,  as  my  Japanese  servant 
remarks,  it  opens  its  arms  to  all  sides. 

Hokusai  may  mean  Northern  Studio,  or  Studio  of  the  North, 
or  House  of  the  North.  And  then  immediately  afterward,  in 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  237 

the  same  year  of  the  beginning  of  our  century,  1800,  he  signs 
'*  Hokusai,  the  Man  Crazy  about  Painting,"  a  definition  to  which 
he  will  return  very  frequently. 

It  would  take  a  long  time  to  describe  the  evolutions  of 
Hokusai,  and  what  seem  to  be  his  frequent  returns  to  certain 
earlier  methods,  or  methods  of  some  of  the  men  of  his  youth. 
He  develops  certain  great  points  for  himself;  among  others, 
such  grandeur  of  line  as  one  can  see  in  the  large  outline  study 
of  a  woman  passing  her  hand  around  her  neck  to  arrange  the 
set  of  her  garments.  In  this  drawing  is  shown  a  side  of 
Hokusai  so  emphatically  different  from  the  hard  and  set  line 
which  he  affects  apparently  as  wilhngly,  that  it  is  worth  dwell- 
ing upon  for  a  moment.  In  another,  the  large  representation 
of  a  Chinese  heroine,  something  of  the  same  charm  of  round- 
ness and  flexibility  will  be  noticed.  In  fact,  notwithstanding 
the  frequent  smallness  and  niggardliness  of  some  of  Hokusai's 
representation  of  women  at  certain  dates,  he  is  as  frequently, 
in  any  subject  where  he  thinks  it  fit  or  proper,  impressed  by 
the  roundness,  the  grace,  the  flexibility  of  the  feminine  form, 
but  a  large  number  are  known  to  many  of  us,  and  not  a  few  are 
reproduced  in  his  woodcuts.  It  was  only  a  few  days  ago  that, 
looking  over  many  of  them,  I  noticed  a  curious  analogy  to  the 
Greek  habit  of  rendering  the  female  form  in  the  fold  of  the 
neck  (the  "necklace  of  Venus,"  as  it  is  called),  the  set  of  the 


238  GREAT    MASTERS 

shoulders  and  the  proportion  of  the  bosom,  which,  in  some  way 
or  other,  allowed  me  to  glance  at  the  Venus  of  Milo  without 
feehng  any  want  of  connection.  It  is  this  surprising  range 
that  estabUshes,  even  for  a  person  as  unsympathetic  as  I  am 
to  Hokusai,  the  essential  importance  of  the  man  and  the 
probability  of  his  name  becoming  better  known  throughout 
the  world  than  it  has  ever  been  in  Japan.  Any  subtle  and 
scholarly  analysis  of  his  work  and  its  ups  and  downs  would  be 
impossible  in  such  an  essay  as  mine.  I  shall  merely  mention 
some  little  facts  of  his  life — some  surprising,  some  amusing — 
and  we  can  see  by  them  how  well  these  accidental  anecdotes 
give  the  many-sided  mind  of  the  painter  as  well  as  his  char- 
acter of  looking  at  things  from  a  place  not  within  them. 

It  seems  that  almost  through  all  his  life  he  suffered  from 
poverty,  sometimes  in  a  grievous  way,  and  that  even  at  times 
he  "  lay  low,"  as  the  boys  have  it,  so  that  he  did  not  put  out 
his  name,  but  was  known  as  "  the  gentleman  who  lives  in  such 
and  such  a  place."  His  long  life  must  have  helped  at  times  to 
make  him  forgotten  before  he  branched  out  anew  into  some 
drawings  or  paintings  that  established  him  again.  One  of  the 
famous  stories  about  him  (another  record  of  the  very  Japanese 
eccentricities  related  of  artists,  done  as  bravado  or  defyings  of 
the  public)  is  a  proof  that  some  of  his  merits  were  not  suffi- 
ciently recognised.  I  make  it  out  to  have  occurred  in  1817, 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  239 

while  he  was  in  the  city  of  Nagoya,  which  is  at  a  considerable 
distance  from  his  own  Yedo.  He  had  pupils  there.  He  had 
been  asked  to  make  drawings,  and  while  his  pupils  made  much 
of  the  extraordinary  variety  and  truthfulness  of  his  representa- 
tions of  all  things  in  his  little  drawings  published  in  books,  the 
opponents  of  the  vulgar  school  twitted  them  because  Hokusai 
could  only  draw  in  a  small  way.  To  this,  he  answered  "  that  if 
the  talent  of  a  painter  had  anything  to  do  with  great  size  and 
with  the  grand  brush-work  necessary  to  great  size,  he  could 
astonish  them  all."  So  that  with  the  help  of  his  pupils  and 
friends  he  undertook  to  execute  before  the  pubhc  an  enormous 
painting.  We  have  an  account  of  it,  with  drawings,  by  an  eye- 
witness. 

In  the  middle  of  the  eastern  court  of  one  of  the  temples, 
which  was  screened  off,  a  paper,  made  on  purpose  by  a  maker 
of  the  thick  paper  for  the  rain-cloaks  that  are  used  in  Japan, 
was  stretched  upon  the  ground  on  a  bed  of  rice-husks  of  con- 
siderable depth.  From  place  to  place  timbers  held  it  down  to 
prevent  its  being  blown  away ;  for  this  piece  of  paper  on  which 
he  was  to  paint  represented  a  surface  of  120  mats,  the  mat  be- 
ing, as  you  know,  six  feet  long  by  three  wide.  An  enormous 
scaffolding  was  raised  against  the  council  building,  and  cords 
and  pulleys  were  fixed  so  as  to  Hft  this  big  drawing  when  it 
should  have  been  done,  or  at  any  moment  when  part  of  it  would 


240  GREAT    MASTERS 

be  better  out  of  the  way.  India  ink  had  been  prepared  in  buck- 
ets. All  this  occupied  the  morning,  and  in  the  afternoon,  before 
an  enormous  crowd  of  all  classes,  Hokusai  and  his  pupils,  in 
ceremonial  dress  (but  with  bared  arms), began  their  work,  the  pu- 
pils taking  the  ink  out  of  the  buckets  and  carrying  it  about  after 
the  painter  in  a  bronze  basin.  The  subject  was  to  be  the  head 
and  shoulders  of  Dharuma,  the  Buddhist  saint,  of  whom  we 
have  so  many  representations.  You  will  remember  him  seated 
gravely,  his  head  covered  with  his  cloak,  and  rolled  up  in  a  sort 
of  ball,  for,  traditionally  absorbed  in  meditation,  he  never  moved, 
and  lost  the  use  of  his  limbs  from  his  immobihty.  This,  of  course, 
is  the  commonplace  and  jocose  side  of  Dharuma. 

With  a  brush  made  of  a  bundle  of  rice  straw,  Hokilsai 
drew  the  nose  and  then  the  right  eye  and  then  the  left  eye 
of  the  Dharuma ;  then  he  took  many  steps,  and  he  drew  the 
mouth  and  the  ear,  and  then,  running  away,  began  to  trace 
the  outline  of  the  head,  and  then  drew  the  beard  and  the 
hair,  using,  to  shade  them,  a  bunch  of  buckwheat  shells,  which 
he  dipped  into  a  thin  India  ink.  Then,  on  an  enormous  table 
another  variety  of  brush  was  brought  to  him,  already  filled 
with  ink;  it  was  made  of  many  bags  of  rice,  fastened  together, 
and  to  this  so-called  brush  was  fastened  a  cord.  Hokusai  in- 
dicated the  place  where  the  mass  should  be  laid  down,  and 
then,  taking  the  rope  upon  his  shoulder,  dragged  the  brush 


H  O  K  U  S  A  I  241 

with  slow  and  broken  steps,  and  thus  made  the  great  sweep- 
ing lines  of  the  dress  of  Dharuma.  The  pupils  then  took  the 
colour  or  colours  out  of  buckets  with  brooms  and  threw  it  upon 
the  dress,  sponging  up  the  lights  with  cloths.  By  night  the  great 
Dharuma  had  been  done,  and  with  pulleys  the  great  picture 
was  lifted.  But  it  was  only  by  the  next  morning  that  the  en- 
tire picture  could  be  shown  to  the  public,  because  of  the  scaf- 
folding having  been  somewhat  too  short. 

It  is  said  by  his  biographer  that  Hokusai  was  a  good  poet  in 
the  popular  methods.  It  is  related  that  he  was  a  member  of 
a  club  or  society  of  poets,  and  that  he  usually  acted  as  chair- 
man or  president.  Among  the  servants  he  was  unknown  as  a 
painter,  which  reminds  us  of  the  value  and  advantage  of  the 
nom  de  guerre,  or  the  nom  de  plume,  assumed  by  a  professional 
man,  in  this  that  his  name  does  not  follow  him  everywhere. 
One  evening  Hokusai  painted  upon  a  lantern — the  paper  hand- 
lantern  of  Japan,  which  usually  has  some  drawing  or  some  let- 
tering upon  it — certain  fern-stalks  so  marvellously  rendered 
that  the  servant  who  had  brought  the  lantern  exclaimed, 
"Really  sir,  what  a  talent  you  would  have  for  drawing." 

Hokusai  has  left  us  occasionally  among  his  innumerable  draw- 
ings, or  rather  books  of  drawings,  certain  statements  and  com- 


242  GREAT    MASTERS 

ments  that  are  worth  quoting  as  again  giving  his  character ;  and 
1  take  an  extract  from  one  of  these  albums  which  consists  of 
pictures  of  certain  illustrious  Chinese  heroes,  known  as  the  he- 
roes of  the  Suikoden.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  in  all  Japanese  and 
Chinese  representations  of  war  I  miss  force  and  movement, 
which  are  the  essential  characters  in  such  cases.  Saddened  by 
this  want,  I  have  burned  myself  in  trying  to  find  a  remedy  and 
to  bring  to  the  task  what  has  seemed  to  me  to  be  wanting. 
Doubtless,  in  my  drawings  there  are  faults  and  many  excesses, 
but  all  the  same  I  am  pleased  to  see  that  my  pupils  are  willing 
to  use  them  as  models." 

However  admirable  many  of  his  drawings  of  battles  and 
struggle  may  be,  and  however  astounding  they  are  to  the  pro- 
fessional man  in  their  endless  variety  and  boldness,  there  are 
moments  when  I  become  very  tired  of  them.  At  other  mo- 
ments I  see  nothing  but  what  he  must  have  wished  to  see  him- 
self I  can  fancy  quite  well  that  Hokiisai,  owing  to  his  social 
position  and  general  tendencies,  and  the  fate  of  the  moment,  to 
which  I  have  before  alluded,  was  shut  out  from  the  sight  of 
many  works  of  art  that  might  have  helped  him  and  given  him 
a  standard  of  high  merit  in  battle-scenes.  Certainly  in  a  great 
deal  of  the  older  work  there  is  a  wonderful  reality  that  looks  as 
if  it  were  familiar  to  the  actual  sight  of  the  artist,  who  himself 
may  have  been  a  sworded  man  belonging  to  the  warrior  class. 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  243 

With  this  reahty  goes  a  freedom  and  a  poetic  sense  that  has 
occasionally  reminded  me,  especially  in  the  drawings  of  horse- 
men, of  the  fancy  and  vigour  of  Delacroix — another  proof,  if 
necessary,  of  the  observation  and  the  imaginative  power  of  the 
great  French  painter. 

However  that  may  be,  it  will  always  be  a  question  whether 
a  man  as  personal  as  Hokiisai  would  not  still  have  been  strange 
and  different.  Even  if  he  had  seen  everything  else  in  painting, 
his  habits  and  the  fierce  necessity  of  everyday  work  for  a  bare 
living  would  make  a  large  number  of  the  factors  of  what  he 
achieved.  His  case  is  an  interesting  one  because  of  its  being  so 
frequent.  The  daily  food  to  be  obtained  in  a  hurry — with  the 
necessity  of  pleasing  a  public,  and  at  the  same  time  with  the 
intellectual  necessity  of  suiting  one's  self  and  being  one's  self,  no 
matter  how  much  and  how  continuously  one  varies  according 
to  the  fashion  which  brings  one  bread.  If  we  have  this  well  be- 
fore our  mind,  the  astounding  importance  of  Hokusai — a  sort 
of  art-labourer — is  enhanced,  and  we  can  appreciate  the  fluc- 
tuations and  weaknesses  of  which  he  has  contrived  to  make 
strength  and  a  steady  course. 

That  he  knew  a  good  deal  of  what  was  outside,  his  occasional 
imitation  of  certain  European  tendencies,  the  use  of  what  we 
call  perspective,  and  some  other  points,  might  prove,  even  if  he 
had  not  written  in  a  little  book  published  under  another  name 


244  GREAT    MASTERS 

(a  book  on  Colour)  the  following  about  the  Dutch  processes 
for  painting  in  oil  in  the  European  way.  What  he  says  gives  in  a 
few  words  the  essential  differences  between  Europe  and  Japan, 
both  of  which  differences  he  admits  as  equally  legitimate. 

"  In  the  Japanese  painting,"  he  says,  "  we  try  to  give  the 
form  and  the  colour  without  the  relief  or  modelling,  but  in  the 
European  process,  relief  is  sought  for  and  a  manner  of  decep- 
tive imitation."  * 

That  is  the  essential  difference,  so  much  so  as  to  justify  quite 
well  the  statement  of  the  Japanese  looking  at  the  exhibition, 
say  of  the  Academy  of  Design  or  any  other:  "  Do  they  think 
that  they  can  take  me  in  ?  I  can  see  that  these  things  are  not 
real." 

So  the  Japanese  gives  up  that  question  of  making  one  beheve 
that  one  could  touch  the  thing ;  he  gives  a  statement,  an  intel- 
lectual statement  of  certain  sides  of  what  one  sees,  to  which  he 
sacrifices  other  points. 

But  the  famous  quotation  at  the  beginning  of  the  collection 
of  the  hundred  views  of  Fuji-Yama  should  always  be  repeated 
whenever  quoting  from  Hokusai :  "  From  the  time  that  I  was 
six  years  old  I  had  the  mania  of  drawing  the  form  of  objects. 
As  I  came  to  be  fifty  I  had  published  an  infinity  of  designs ; 
but  all  that  I  have  produced  before  the  age  of  seventy  is  not 

*  The  word  form  is  perhaps  mistranslated,  but  as  near  as  I  can  get. 


H  O  K  U  S  A I  245 

worth  being  counted.  It  is  at  the  age  of  seventy-three  that  1 
have  somewhat  begun  to  understand  the  structure  of  true  nature, 
of  animals  and  grasses,  and  trees  and  birds  and  fishes  and  insects ; 
consequently  at  eighty  years  of  age  I  shall  have  made  still  more 
progress ;  at  ninety  I  hope  to  have  penetrated  into  the  mystery 
of  things  ;  (then  comes  the  inevitable  irony  of  Hokiisai)  at  one 
hundred  years  of  age  I  should  have  reached  decidedly  a  mar- 
vellous degree,  and  when  I  shall  be  one  hundred  and  ten,  all 
that  I  do,  every  point  and  every  line,  shall  be  instinct  with  life 
— and  I  ask  all  those  who  shall  hve  as  long  as  I  do  to  see  if  I 
have  not  kept  my  word. 

"  Written  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  by  me  who  was  formerly 
Hokusai,  and  who  is  now  Gwakio  Rojin,  the  Old  Man  Crazy 
about  Drawing." 

Ten  years  later  he  still  lived  and  painted,  and  the  last  of  his 
drawings  were  painted  at  eighty-eight  years  of  age. 

He  died  in  a  house  of  Asakusa,  a  district  of  Tokio,  then 
called  Yedo,  which  was  the  ninety-third  place  in  which  he 
had  lived  during  the  course  of  his  vagabond  and  struggling 
existence. 

It  must  be  then  that  he  wrote  to  his  fi-iend  Takagi  this  last 
ironical  letter  : 

"The  king  Em- Ma,  the  king  of  the  under  world,  is  very  ill 
and  about  to  retire  from  business.  He  has  had  himself  built 


246  GREAT    MASTERS 

on  that  account  a  pretty  little  country  house,  and  he  asks  now 
that  I  should  go  and  paint  something  for  him.  I  am,  therefore, 
forced  to  go,  and  when  I  go  I  shall  take  my  drawings  with  me. 
I  intend  to  hire  rooms  at  the  corner  of  the  street  of  the  under 
world,  where  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  you  whenever  you  shall 
have  occasion  to  pass  there. 

"  HOKUSAI." 

His  dying  words  have  been  kept — one  phrase  again  in  the 
usual  strain :  "  If  Heaven  gave  me  only  ten  years  more — if 
Heaven  gave  me  only  five  years  more  of  hfe — I  might  become 
a  really  great  artist."  With  these  words  he  passed  away. 

"The  funeral  was  carried  out  with  money  contributed  by 
his  pupils  and  friends.  His  coffin  was  of  ordinary  materials, 
but  among  the  train  of  one  hundred  persons  that  followed  it 
were  gentlemen  attended  by  armed  retainers.  This  was  greatly 
envied  by  the  neighbours,  for  there  was  no  record  in  the  history 
of  those  low  tenement  houses  that  so  imposing  a  funeral  had 
ever  gone  out  from  the  quarter. " 

He  died  probably  on  the  18th  of  April  (others  say  the  10th 
of  May),  1848,  just  a  little  before  Japan  was  opened  to  the 
world.  The  tomb  I  have  spoken  of  has  on  one  side  the  name 
we  know  so  well,  "  The  Tomb  of  Manji."  JU  "  The  Old  Man 
Crazy  about  Painting,"  and  below  the  family  name,  Kawamura. 
The  other  side  of  the  monument  bears  a  ceremonial  inscription, 


H  O  K  U  S  A  I  247 

as  usual,  more  or  less  conventional  or  full  of  meaning,  as  we 
wish  to  see  it.  It  is  the  record  of  the  passage  out  of  this  world, 
and  brings  in  again  the  Japanese  habit  of  another  name  after 
death.  "Nanso  In"  he  is  called  by  his  new  name  after  death, 
"  the  singularly  illustrious,  Hokusai,  the  sincere  behever." 

On  a  third  side  of  the  four-square  pillar  is  given  the  verse 
or  sentiment — "  Words  of  Departure,"  which,  according  to  a 
Japanese  habit,  he  composed  just  before  his  death.  I  have 
found  them  extremely  difficult  to  translate,  nor  have  I  found 
agreement  as  to  their  meaning.  "  Sorrow  and  the  soul  dissolved. 
Pleasure  (it  will  be)  to  roam  the  wide  fields  of  Summer." 

The  biographer  whom  I  have  chiefly  consulted  seems  doubt- 
ful as  to  whether  Hokusai  was  buried  there.  The  priest  of  the 
temple  told  him  that  this  tomb  was  built  by  Kase  Sakujiro, 
Hokusai's  son's  son,  after  his  death;  that  the  body  was  not 
there,  but  was  under  his  father's  tomb ;  and  there  are  still  more 
doubts  as  to  whether  he  be  not  buried  somewhere  else. 

The  question  of  a  monument  to  a  man  of  the  kind,  even 
if  great  and  famous — a  great  poet,  a  great  painter,  a  great 
scientist — is  of  very  little  consequence.  We  can  all  remember 
how  absurd  the  honours — gi'eat  as  they  were — that  were  paid 
to  Michelangelo  by  his  solemn  funeral  and  his  tomb,  meant  to 
be  imposing.  How  much  better  the  old  man's  request  for  a 
simple  burial,  and  on  his  tomb  his  unfinished  statue  of  Christ's 


248  GREAT    MASTERS 

entombment,  typical  of  his  faith,  and  of  the  fact  that  no  one  in 
the  intellectual  life  can  hope  to  close  what  he  has  lived  in. 

The  whole  question  is  another  explanation  of  the  position  of 
a  man  like  Hokusai :  the  question  of  his  being  more  or  less  the 
representative  of  his  nation,  of  its  art,  or,  on  the  contrary,  of  his 
being  antagonistic  to  most  of  the  higher  traditions  of  the  art  of 
Japan.  The  man  who  has  carried  out  with  more  or  less  success 
in  his  own  life  such  a  course  of  intellectual  appreciation  of  the 
world  does  not  depend  at  all  upon  the  approval  or  blame  of  his 
people  or  his  nation.  They  may  even  pass  away,  they  and  their 
ideas  and  their  civilisation — and  his  own  civilisation  embodied 
in  himself  remains,  as  it  has  been  with  so  many  poets,  artists, 
and  thinkers  of  the  past.  For  the  man  who  lives  with  the 
support  of  others — statesmen,  politicians — the  monument  is  a 
fit  thing:  his  existence,  his  value  is  his  connection  with  other 
people. 

There  is  a  charming  story,  Japanese  or  Chinese — a  story  of  a 
famous  Chinese  painter  who  lived  in  Japan  far  back — ever  so 
far  back — and  who  painted  there  sublime  religious  pictures. 
But  getting  old,  he  went  home  to  China  to  die,  and  at  the  end 
he  betook  himself  to  landscape-painting.  Every  one  knew  that 
he  was  so  engaged,  and  that  he  was  painting  a  great  painting — 
some  screen,  perhaps — a  subject  representing  mountain  scenery, 
such  a  retreat  as  a  man  might  wish  to  end  in  when  he  had  given 


HOKUSAI  249 

up  the  world.  This  was  known  to  his  pupils,  but  no  one  was 
allowed  to  see  it,  until  at  length,  by  some  sort  of  command,  he 
offered  to  show  it  to  the  emperor  and  the  court.  Of  course  it 
was  criticised;  fault  was  found  with  the  technique;  and  the 
reality;  and  the  composition;  and  the  feehng;  and  whatever 
else  does  not  suit  other  people.  The  old  painter  listened  without 
answering.  He  bowed  in  acknowledgment  to  the  people  present, 
and  then,  to  quote  the  text,  "As  he  had  created  this  work  of  art 
for  his  final  abode,"  he  stepped  into  the  picture  and  disappeared 
within  the  images  that  he  had  painted.  And  the  painting  also 
faded  from  before  the  spectators.  The  moral  of  this  story,  good 
for  all  artists  and  all  critics,  is  natural  enough — that  the  art  of 
the  painter  is  his  final  abode.  If  it  be  really  his,  he  is  safe  within 
it — safe  from  praise  as  he  is  safe  from  blame. 


THE   END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY.  N.Y. 


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